Tamper 32
by Mackiecam
Summary: Manoso's, Ranger's family restaurant, is in trouble. Someone is tampering with the food and people are being poisoned. Their reputation is crumbling and their busy holiday season sales are lacking. His family turns to Ranger and Stephanie and the Rangeman team for help. A total babe and posted a minimum of 3 x week.
1. Chapter 1

_The following story is a work of fiction_ _that features characters developed by Janet Evanovich. No money has been earned through writing this story. Any similarities to real events or persons are entirely coincidental. _

_Although a stand-alone, this book builds upon the previous books in my series. The first one is a bit cupcake-y, but the rest are pure babes and develop the relationships between the characters. For maximum enjoyment, I suggest that you read them in the following order:_

_22 Caliber_

_Trigger Happy 23 _

_Morelli's Argument 23.5_

_Ranger 23.75_

_Threatening 24_

_Fixation 25_

_Security 26_

_Sneaky 27_

_Date Night at the Movies 27.1_

_Meeting Maria 27.2_

_The Intervention 27.3_

_Envious 28_

_Dickie's Demise 28.1_

_Mob Matters 28.2_

_Altercation at Giovichinni's 28.3_

_Numbskull 29_

_Toxic 30_

_Obit 31_

_In recognition of the fact that I'm a binge reader and don't personally like to wait for updates, I will try to post at a minimum at nights on a Sunday-Tuesday-Thursday schedule (although it could be on a Monday-Wednesday-Friday schedule, depending upon where you live in the world), barring unseen life events. However, in the past I have periodically posted extra chapters to celebrate achieving some personal milestone – or just because I like the way the sun is shining that day – so you might want to watch for those. Since I do that relatively frequently, if you are enjoying the story you might want to follow it rather than continually check back._

_Reviews, as always, are greatly appreciated. I have a few people who regularly review for me, and I'd like to thank you for that. Your reviews have given me the confidence to write another story. As a thank you for leaving reviews, for every 25 reviews I generally post an extra chapter on top of my three times per week schedule. I appreciate all reviews and try to respond to each and every one. Please note that I cannot respond to reviews that have been posted by guests. _

_Thank you for reading my story. I hope you enjoy it!_

_~ Sarah ~_

**Chapter One **

I shut down the last store site on my computer and sighed with relief. I had selected gifts for my family, Connie and Lula, Ranger, Julie, Ranger's family, and Ella and her husband, Luis. Connie and Lula were two people that I worked with. Ranger was my fiancé and Julie was his thirteen-year old daughter, Ella was our housekeeper and Luis was our corporate caretaker. My name was Stephanie Plum, and I was pleased to say that, aside for a few small things for Ranger's stocking, I was finished my Christmas shopping.

This would be my first Christmas with Ranger. Also known as Ricardo Carlos Manoso, he was incredibly sexy and I didn't know why he was with me. He was Cuban-American in descent, and had short dark brown hair, dark brown eyes and a heart-stopping smile. He was six inches taller than my 5'7" frame, and had an actual six-pack and all the other muscles that went with being in optimal shape. Women drooled when he walked by. I was no exception to that rule. He listened well, saw much, smiled little and laughed rarely, although he had smiled more often and laughed more frequently since I had moved into his apartment. He said I made him happy.

I remember reading an article in some woman's magazine that said that couples who got together were about the same level of attractiveness. In other words, it said a studmuffin wouldn't settle with a dog. I proved that study to be wrong. Ranger was the total opposite to me. I had shoulder-length brown curly hair and blue eyes and was average in build and looks. Ranger says that I'm beautiful and sexy, and all I can say is that I think he needs glasses. Unlike Ranger, there was nothing remarkable about me.

Ranger and I had known each other for years and, over the years, had become best friends. We had been dancing around a romantic relationship for almost as long as I have known him – even while I had been going out with my ex – so when I broke up with my former boyfriend, it was natural for Ranger and me to start dating. I had broken up with my ex eight months before, started officially going out with Ranger two months after that and had moved in with Ranger two and a half months ago. Our relationship had been developing slowly over several years, but when I broke up with my ex the momentum on our relationship dramatically gained speed like a rising exponential graph. Now, eight months later, I was engaged to him.

About the same time as I moved in with Ranger I became pregnant, although I didn't know it until I had lived with him for almost five weeks. Once I knew, however, my life changed drastically in every way and it had been a struggle mentally, physically and professionally. I had never wanted a baby. I didn't even like babies. In fact, I had been fighting against the fact that I was pregnant until I almost lost the baby. However, like most people when something is almost taken away from them, I decided that I really wanted it and jumped on board the baby wagon with both feet. Or would that be the baby carriage?

Physically, being pregnant was tough. I felt sick all the time. Now that I was ten weeks along, I had thought that it would have started to abate by this point. Apparently, I was wrong. At the end of every day I prayed that the day that had just finished was the worst day, and that I would soon be travelling down the far side of the hill. And every morning I would realize that I hadn't yet reached the crest. Despite spending a significant amount of time hunched over the toilet, my pants were starting to get tight and I was living in yoga pants that had more forgiving waistbands than my uniform fatigues. However, they say that there is always something good in everything, and the good news was that my breasts were expanding beyond the holding capabilities of my bra. Since I was fairly average in size, I could use all the help that I could get.

Professionally, it was even tougher than it was physically. I had two jobs. The first was working as a bounty hunter for my cousin, Vinnie. Vinnie ran Vincent Plum Bail Bonds, one of a few bonding agents used by felons in the Trenton area. When a felon was arrested, there was a period of time between the arrest and the hearing, and most of the time the felon didn't want to wait in jail while he or she waited for their hearing. Most of the time, the judge awarded bail, or the ability of the felon to pay a sum of money to the courts for the chance to roam free before their trial. When the felon showed up for their trial, the money was returned to them.

However, a significant number of felons didn't have the cash available to pay their bail. That's where the bail bondsman came into play. For the price of fifteen percent of the price of the bond and the provision of some collateral, the bondsman would lend the felon the money to pay the bail. When the felon showed up at court and got the bail money back, they returned the money to the bondsman and the bondsman returned the collateral – but the bondsman kept the fifteen percent.

Some felons, however, decided not to show up for their hearing, and that made the bondsman very cranky. Without that money returned, they couldn't earn another fifteen percent. To get their money back they sent out a bounty hunter, aka me, to capture the felon and return them to the justice system. For that I got two-thirds of the bail fee, or ten percent of the price of the bond. Those ten percents added up over time and, although it wasn't a lucrative career, it paid the bills and was something I enjoyed most of the time – and I figured that, if you could say that you liked a job most of the time, it was a good job.

I had blackmailed my way into the position a few years before when I had lost my job as a lingerie buyer. I was just as happy to have lost that job. I had gotten into lingerie buying in the hopes that I would be given free samples. However, the position failed me and my lingerie selection remained composed of T&A shorts and numerous t-shirts that were too stretched out or too stained to wear as regular shirts. Unlike being a lingerie buyer, being a bounty hunter suited me. I didn't have to wear heels or nylons, I had flexible hours and perhaps most importantly, I was able to make regular runs to the Tasty Pastry for my daily doughnut fix.

However, it wasn't unheard of to roll around on the ground as you were restraining a skip – and that was the tamest thing that had happened to me. I had been shot, stabbed, kidnapped, firebombed, punched, bitten and bruised all in the line of duty, and because of that Ranger and I had decided to have me focus on my second job while I was pregnant.

My second job was working for Ranger as his lead researcher. Ranger was the CEO and owner of an ultra-elite security company called Rangeman. They provided all manner of security services, from system design to installation to monitoring to cyber-security to providing security guards to providing bodyguards to skip tracing for all the violent skips that I was too nervous about capturing myself. Housed in a discreet seven-story office building in the heart of Trenton, the company had in the past worked for the CIA, the FBI, the DEA, the Secret Service, and the local and state police departments. There were two offices – the head office that I worked out of in Trenton, and a satellite office in Miami. The company was getting known nationally as having the best system designers, and they'd been used by places like the MoMA, the CURE Insurance Arena, and the White House.

The company had grown dramatically from the two people that it had been when I first met Ranger to the over one hundred and seventy-five people in head office alone that it was today, and it was showing no signs of stopping. Ranger was signing on companies faster than he could keep up, and he was constantly in a hiring mode. It didn't help that his Operations staff were – except for me – only veterans and only male. This significantly reduced the pool of potential employees. Even so, Ranger had developed a skilled team that was very good at their jobs.

With having trouble getting staff, Ranger had recently decided to hire females into his positions as security guards. He would still prefer to hire former veterans, but hiring females would greatly help out his labor shortage. He had about a hundred security guards on staff, but he had recently signed on three new clients who wanted security guards for their multi-location companies, and he was in the position that he needed to hire many more guards to cover their needs. The Sales department had identified ten more potential clients who wanted to hire Rangeman security guards as well. Personally, after seeing how he was struggling to come up with suitable staff, I thought that it would be a good idea for Ranger to open up his hiring requirements so that his staff wasn't all former military – at least for the security guards, anyway. I believed that it was the only way that Ranger would be able to get enough feet on the ground.

Although his administrative and support staff weren't all military men, many of them were…and like his Operations staff, all of them were male. There were only two staff members who were female. I was one. Ella, the staff housekeeper who looked after Ranger's apartment and laundry and made the food for the staff, was the other one. This meant that Ella was viewed as the staff mother and I was viewed as the cosseted little sister. The guys were a great team and together we formed a family of sorts.

Again, knowing how difficult Ranger was finding the hiring of suitable staff, I thought he needed to open up his hiring practice for administrative and support staff as well. It wasn't a bad idea anyway. I didn't know how Ranger had gotten away with only hiring males, but with his increased work with various governmental agencies, I thought it would be good for his staff to have a more diversified representation. I think Ranger had come to the same conclusion, as when he reworked the exercise facilities he was intending to put in both male and female change rooms.

In my role as researcher, I was responsible for inspecting the details of companies and the lives of individuals. I did this first for the Sales Department in a more cursory view, so that they could focus their sales pitch. This also helped us decide whether we wanted to accept that company or that individual as a client. As Ranger says, we ran a clean shop and we wanted our clients to be equally as clean. We wouldn't work for terrorists or drug dealers, and although when Ranger was growing his company he had been known to work for members of the mob, he no longer worked for anyone engaging in criminal activities. He chose, instead, to go after work with the various alphabet agencies. Ranger was a good person, an honorable person who played by his own set of rules, and he felt that the alphabet agencies were a much nicer clientele that used a wider range of his skills in a more legal manner. He didn't mind bending the rules, but he didn't like to actually break them.

So I researched potential clients for Sales. Then, when they were signed on as clients, I researched the background of each person who worked for our client companies. Once the company was up and running with us, I researched all potential new employees for the companies. I did all of this using In-Spect, our in-house designed search engine. It was incredibly invasive and looked at everything from financials to work history to medical history to social media to friends and family. It could tell you everything from your Apgar score at birth to the page you last searched the internet for and everything in-between. I had run my own name through the search engine for a lark a few months before, and had been shocked at what the search engine had pulled up. The only person I had never been able to pull any information up on was Ranger. He was a ghost.

Each search took, on average, half an hour. It took about ten minutes to pull the information, another ten minutes to analyze the information, and the last ten minutes to write up my findings in a summary report and link the search results. The odd search took less time; many took more, especially if I found something using the In-Spect search engine that bore further investigation. Since Ranger was signing on about two companies a week, many with large staffs of one hundred or more people, I had been run off my feet and, although I missed being a bounty hunter, I was too busy to be bored.

With Rangeman becoming known as the best of the best and because we had such a talented staff, the local Trenton Police Department paid a retainer to Rangeman to have them act as consultants to the force. For this, they got access to one of the Rangeman Emergency Response Teams. Rangeman had two ERTs that were on-call one week out of every two, and they were trained to respond to all manner of emergencies. They were all former special tactical unit personnel, whether they were former Rangers, SEALs, Delta Force, whatever, and were highly trained soldiers. Each team was comprised of ten soldiers and a unit commander. For two weeks per month the unit commander was Ranger. For the other two weeks of the month Tank, Ranger's right-hand man and his Vice-President of Operations, was the unit commander. With the ability to respond to an emergency within ten minutes and able to do anything from hostage negotiations to search and rescues, the TPD wanted to have the ability to call upon their expertise when it was needed. The plan was to increase the number of ERTs to four, and have them each work one week per month. Ranger thought that would be more fair to staff, but he wasn't planning on doing that until he had the space to house everyone.

With paying the retainer, the TPD got access to me as well. Periodically, if they were unable to find a lead on a particular case, they would bring some names to me and have me run the names through the In-Spect program. It added some variety to my day, so I enjoyed it. The bad part was that it made me very busy, and we've since brought a part-time researcher on board. Miguel was the person who did the job prior to me taking it over eight months before and, although he preferred doing patrol, he had been accommodating about helping me do the research. He said that he didn't mind doing it part time as long as he could still do patrol each day.

To help us successfully work with the TPD, a detective in the Crimes Against Persons division was assigned as a liaison. Joe Morelli was a good person and a good cop. He was also my former boyfriend and one of my closest friends. Ranger and Morelli had always had respect for each other, but they more recently have started to become friends. Ranger said that he will never become a close friend of Joe's. Joe had too much of a temper and Ranger, with his calm and steady outlook and cool belief that there was no room for anger in life, didn't like surrounding himself with hotheads. But he respected Joe's abilities and he respected the friendship that Joe and I have. He had worked hard at developing a relationship with him and now gets along with Joe well. So Ranger was glad to work with someone he respected as much as Joe, Joe was glad to have the promotion that came with being the liaison, and I was glad to have the ability to interact with Joe on a regular basis. Even though I wasn't going out with him anymore, I still cared deeply about him.

About two weeks ago I had been working incredible hours. Before Miguel started working part-time with me, I was getting behind and trying hard to catch up, and Ranger and I got a scare when I started to bleed. We were worried that I was miscarrying, but after a couple of days the bleeding stopped. I was in the middle of working on a case with Morelli, and Morelli and I identified the felons and sussed out the evidence needed. The next day, Ranger and I were going to the obstetrician's and while Ranger was parking the car, one of the people we were accumulating evidence on saw me and, angry about my role in his arrest, tried to abduct me. I was able to restrain him, but while I was rolling around on the ground with him he kicked me hard in the stomach – and I started bleeding heavily. For the last week I had been restricted to lying down for twenty hours a day. I was bored and unhappy. Miguel, who had been taken off patrol completely to fill in for me, was bored and unhappy, and the only good thing I could say about it was that it had given me a chance to get my Christmas shopping done.

I was appreciative of the fact that I hadn't had to go out to do my shopping that I had done so far. Like most New Jersey citizens, I looked at Christmas shopping as a competitive sport. Finding the closest parking spot to the mall, butting into lines, snatching the last of a particular item – it was a sport that I was good at. I, however, didn't find any great joy in it. The canned Christmas music, the screaming brats, the throngs of people just didn't do it for me. I usually left my shopping until the last week before Christmas. I was one week early in getting my shopping done or, as much as I could do from the sofa in our apartment, and I was quite proud of myself. I thought I might have to do more online shopping in the future as well. It was a much saner way of getting my shopping done. Dangerous, because it was easier to spend money, but saner.


	2. Chapter 2

If you didn't work for Rangeman, you would probably never know the extent of what they did. Staff signed confidentiality agreements when they were hired, and no one other than staff was allowed on the premises. A lot happened in the building, however. Two basement levels contained parking for staff and fleet cars, a holding cell for skips that Ranger was transporting or holding for one of the government agencies, and a shooting range. I didn't know what else was down there. I hadn't looked. Until I had become a permanent staff member six months before, I had thought that the less I knew about what Rangeman did, the better it would be for me.

The first floor of the building contained the lobby, some conference rooms, and a gym that was open 24/7 for staff use. At least, it was open for staff use for all those times that I wasn't using the gym. Ranger shut down the training facilities when I was using them so that I wouldn't feel uncomfortable being surrounded by men while wearing tight exercise wear. At least, that's the reason he gave me. In actuality I think it was so that Ranger's blood pressure wouldn't rise from seeing those men all ogling me while I was wearing said exercise wear.

The second floor contained all our administrative and support departments. The third and fourth floors contained efficiency apartments for the ERTs, the fifth floor was the Operations floor and was where Ranger and I both had our offices, the sixth floor was Ella's and Luis's apartment, and the penthouse was Ranger's and my apartment. I liked being close to the office. Having a commute time of less than five minutes per day meant that we had more free time, although we tended to spend that extra time working rather than relaxing.

The office was bursting at the seams, however, so Ranger had just finished purchasing the empty lot next to our building. It had formerly been a church, but the church had burned down a year ago and the priests had just recently decided not to build on the site again. It was a large property and Ranger was thrilled to have been able to scoop it up. In March he was scheduled to break ground and build another seven-floor tower. That tower would contain all the residences and our original building would change to just office space.

The gym will move to the new office tower and a pool will be added to the exercise facilities and, as I said, there will be both male and female change rooms. There will be four floors of one-bedroom apartments for ERT staff – one team per floor – a three thousand-square foot apartment for Tank, another for Ella and Luis, and the top floor again will become Ranger's and my apartment. Our living space will double in size from our current just-over three thousand square feet to a just-under seven thousand-square foot flat. In addition to the living room, dining room, kitchen, master bedroom, two bathrooms and a den that we have currently, our new place will have a nanny suite, four bedrooms with private bathrooms, separate offices for Ranger and me, a sunroom, a laundry room, and a large wrap-around belvedere that will run along two sides of the apartment. The place will be massive. Since I love sunlight, Ranger has incorporated a lot of windows and skylights into the design and, since I loved watching the fire in our existing den, Ranger had added a number of gas fireplaces throughout the apartment. I loved Ranger's existing apartment. I think I will absolutely adore his new one.

When all the residences and gym have moved over to the new building, the office space in the existing building will be changing. The first floor will become just conference rooms plus the lobby. The second and third floors will become the Administration and Support Services floors. The fourth and fifth floors will be for Operations. The sixth floor will become the staff lounge and, in addition to being where Ella will cook her food for the day, will have a number of dining tables, comfortable couches and chairs, and a couple of pool tables and some gaming systems and big-screen televisions. The penthouse, Ranger's and my current apartment, will become a guest suite. Periodically, Ranger was asked to host dignitaries and celebrities and although his safe houses were safe, they weren't luxurious. He wanted to have a nicer option to offer to clients.

In preparation for the conversion of our apartment to a guest suite, Ranger was having his overly-large living room subdivided into a living room and two bedrooms, thus making the apartment a three-bedroom apartment and, because our office/den had a pull-out sofa, it could be viewed as a four-bedroom. Since the baby will be born before the new tower is built, construction on these new rooms is happening in another month. Although we wouldn't decorate the new room as a nursery, it would still be nice to have a dedicated space for the baby to come home to. Both Ranger and I thought it would be better for both the baby as well as us to have a separate room for the baby to sleep in.

I shut my laptop down, put it on the coffee table, and rolled over to my side. I was incredibly bored with being forced to lie on my back or side. I had been lying down like that for the last ten days, and that was about nine days and twenty-three hours too long. Despite knowing that it wasn't his fault, my patience was waning and my general grumpiness meant that I was starting to take it out on Ranger. He, luckily, was taking it all in stride and not holding it against me.

I was looking forward to going to the obstetrician's the next day. Ranger and I would find out if we would be able to lift the restrictions. I thought I'd be allowed to. After all, I was finally no longer bleeding and, according to the ultrasound that we'd had done that morning, the peanut's heartbeat was strong and the baby was quite active. I'm not a doctor so I could be wrong, but according to what Ranger and I saw on the screen, the baby was doing well in there.

I closed my eyes and fell asleep, but I woke up half an hour later when Ranger walked into the apartment. "Babe", he said. He sat of the side of the sofa and gave me a kiss. "How are you doing?"

"I'm tired of lying down." I could feel my lip go out in a pout, and although I willed it otherwise, tears came to my eyes.

"I know, babe. I suspect that tomorrow the restrictions will be lifted."

"It can't come soon enough. I even miss setting up companies." I liked research okay. It satisfied my nosy tendencies, but setting up companies wasn't my favorite thing to do. When I was doing that sort of research often the most that I could identify were unpaid parking tickets or unreturned library books. I loved it when I found someone that I could sink my teeth into, but researching the bland was extremely, mind-numbingly, boring.

Ranger laughed and helped me off the sofa. While he set the table I used the facilities and washed my hands. By the time I entered the kitchen, Ella had arrived with our dinner.

We had just finished eating when Ranger got a call. "Here?" he said. He listened for a few seconds longer. "I'll be down in a minute to sign you in." He hung up a few seconds later and turned to me. "Elena is here. Reception tried to turn her away." Elena was Ranger's oldest sister. She was married and had three kids, and lived in Newark and managed the family restaurant.

"Here?" I looked at him in shock.

"That was my reaction as well. She said that she had to talk to me, that only we could solve her problem. She was crying."

"I'll put on a fresh pot of coffee while you are collecting her."

Ranger smiled and told me to leave the coffee and lie down on the sofa instead. He gave me a kiss and left the apartment. I put the coffee on anyway and boiled the kettle for a cup of peppermint tea before wandering into the den. I turned the gas fireplace on and lay down on the sofa, and by the time they had returned I was anxious about what Elena's visit meant. After all, she had never been to Ranger's apartment before. We had invited Ranger's family for dinner in another three weeks, but until I had moved in the only people who had seen Ranger's apartment after it had been built were Tank, Ella and her husband Luis, and me. Since I had moved in, we had been slowly expanding the number of people who had seen Ranger's apartment. Connie and Lula, good friends of mine that I worked with at the bonds office, had been invited for lunch. My mother and grandmother had been invited for lunch. Joe Morelli, my friend and our police liaison, had been invited to dinner and had been here a few times since on police business. And Julie, Ranger's daughter, had stayed a couple of nights over the Thanksgiving holiday. I was much more of an open book and was pleased to invite those people into his apartment. It was much harder for Ranger to accept. He was, and always would be, concerned about personal safety for both himself and his loved ones.

To most people looking in who didn't know the extent of his professional career, the abnormally rigorous steps Ranger took to ensure personal safety might have seemed a little silly. I, however, knew of his background and understood his trepidation. While Ranger was in the army, he had been part of the team that had transported the deceased Osama bin Laden to the American ship for burial at sea. In addition to all the SEALs who were involved in the actual attack, all the Rangers that were part of that mission had been targeted by al-Qaeda and some members had been killed in retaliation. Apparently al-Qaeda had wanted to bury bin Laden themselves.

But that wasn't the only reason that Ranger was targeted. Ranger was known as being the best in the world for leading extractions of assets from enemy territories. He was also known to excel in providing bodyguarding services. As such, he had been headhunted to an organization known as PMC, or Private Military Contractors. They were the people the government or corporations sent in when they didn't think a job was possible or when they wanted an arm's length from the work that was being done. They were the most talented soldiers that the US military had trained. Ranger's role was fairly innocuous – now. He was a trainer, but he hadn't always been. With his Hispanic coloring and his fluency in Spanish, he was a natural to work in the War on Drugs and when working for PMC he had led several raids into the territory of various drug lords to shut down their operations. Those drug lords, like the al-Qaeda, had targeted him as well. Ranger was glad that he was now a trainer, but was still afraid that his past was going to come back and bite him in the ass.

Ranger handled that danger personally by becoming a ghost, but I already had social media and a work history, and as such had a presence that would not be easily erased. He had kept an arm's length from his friends and family, but he couldn't ask the same of me. Not only would it be challenging for someone with my personality, but he knew from experience that the sort of life that I would need to live was a very lonely one. In response, when we were getting together he entrusted the information about his training role in PMC with me. More recently, he had started to open up about his time in the Rangers and his work in the War on Drugs. He had done so much, and I was honored that he trusted me enough to let me know what he had done in his past. I knew that trust didn't come easily to him. Outside PMC staff, only Tank and I knew his history. When Ranger first started telling me his work history he said that, if I got together with him, I would have to follow a number of safety protocols.

It took me a while to decide whether I wanted to accept Ranger – and the associated increased need for safety. What this meant, on a practical level, was that I was required to wear clothing that blended in. This wasn't a big deal since I had never been someone with an outlandish fashion sense. It meant that I was required to wear a watch with a personal tracker in it at all times, even in the shower. Since I liked the watch Ranger had selected, that wasn't a big deal either. It meant that I had to drive one of Ranger's cars. Since Ranger's cars were typically much nicer than anything that I could afford, that wasn't challenging. It meant that I couldn't get a tattoo or dye my hair. That again wasn't challenging. What was challenging were my friends and family. Some of my friends and family, specifically my Grandmother and my friend Lula, were shocking in their attitudes and outlook and my ability to blend in when I was with them was reduced to nil. With either of them, you could never be certain that their hair would be their actual color when you saw them. Their clothes were designed for the young and svelte (something neither of them was), and their attitude was always in-your-face New Jersey. The only thing that Ranger could do above and beyond what he was already doing to keep me safe was to microchip me so that the tracking device from my watch would be implanted under my skin. Thankfully, that was a little too Hollywood for even Ranger to do.

Ranger brought Elena into the apartment and walked into the kitchen to pour them a cup of coffee and make my tea. "Steph is lying down in the den", he said. "We weren't going to tell until you come for dinner, but Steph is just over ten weeks pregnant. She started bleeding ten days ago and the doctor put her on bed rest for twenty hours a day. It has been a long haul for her."

"How is she feeling now?" asked Elena. I could hear the tears in her voice.

"Better. The bleeding stopped three days ago and we went for an ultrasound today. The peanut was active and the heartbeat was strong. We go tomorrow for the results of the ultrasound, but to all intents and purposes the pregnancy looks good. We fully anticipate the restrictions will be lifted tomorrow."

"That's good."

Ranger and Elena walked into the den, and Elena gave me a hug. "How are you feeling?" she said.

"Okay. Nauseous", I said. "Did you eat? We have leftovers from our dinner."

"I don't think I can eat", said Elena. "I'm a little too upset."

"What's going on?" asked Ranger.

"Our restaurant is in trouble."


	3. Chapter 3

Ranger sat beside me and arranged himself so that I could lean my back into his front. My legs were stretched out on the sofa in front of me. Elena perched on the chair to the side. "The restaurant is in trouble?" said Ranger.

"It is", said Elena. "You're the only person I could think of who would be able to help."

"How is it in trouble?" I asked.

"We use organic ingredients at our restaurant. It's one of the ways that we make our food taste so good. We have one supplier for all our meats and are, in fact, part owners of the company. That is not well known and our involvement is of a financier rather than an overseeing partner. We have nothing to do with the company but, when they needed financial backing a few years ago during the company start-up, we thought it would be better for our restaurant if we owned parts of all suppliers. We have similar agreements and investments with other suppliers as well.

"However, we had another abattoir approach us and ask us to switch over our meat supplier. We refused, partly because of our secret involvement in our current supplier's company, partly because they provide the best quality of meat that we have ever encountered, and partly because our contract doesn't allow it. The new supplier told us that he would make us regret it."

"How long ago did you have this conversation with the new abattoir?" said Ranger.

"Nature-Fresh, the supplier that we own stock in, has been approached by Abateur several times over the last six months. They want to buy out Nature-Fresh, but Nature-Fresh is doing well. It caters to a boutique market that is well-respected in the restaurant community. Abateur has only recently come to us."

"Do you want me to talk to them?" asked Ranger.

"I think it has gone beyond talking", said Elena. "As I said, Abateur came to us a month ago and asked us to switch. We refused and that was when they told us that we'd regret it. Shortly after that we started having patrons develop food poisoning. It started out at one case three weeks ago. Two weeks ago there were two cases. In the past week, there were three cases.

"Local health inspectors have tested our food, but it is only the meat that is affected. The seafood is fine and the produce is fine. However, word has gotten out that there is a problem with our food. Last night we had only half the normal throughput that we normally do, and three of those people developed food poisoning. Our business is suffering, but so is Nature-Fresh's business. For us, this is a double whammy."

"What percentage of Nature-Fresh do you own?" asked Ranger.

"We've invested quite a lot in the company, and now own about thirty percent. Since we are part-owners, we get preferred pricing on the meats, which means we can pass on the savings to our patrons."

"How close are your ties to Nature-Fresh?" said Ranger.

"Fairly close", said Elena. "They name us as a client in their promotional material."

"Do you think you could get someone in to overview and design a security system for their company?"

"Probably", said Elena. She reached forward and took a sip of her coffee.

Ranger pulled out his phone and checked his company work schedule. "Today is Sunday", said Ranger. "Mike and I can tour the restaurant on Tuesday. El, if you can get a list of your employees to us tomorrow Steph can start researching in-depth each of your employees. I'd like each of the employees working at Nature-Fresh to be investigated as well. Babe, go as in-depth as you can. There has to be someone who has something to gain by the tampering with the food. Elena, do any other restaurants have a problem with tainted meat?"

"I don't think so."

"So this is personal as well as professional."

Elena wiped a tear from her eye. "I don't know why they are targeting us."

"That's what we'll get to the bottom of." Ranger looked down at his employee schedule again. "I'll assign Raphael to go undercover at the restaurant. He's good at going undercover and is a quick study. I think you'll be pleased with him. I'll assign Cal to go undercover at Nature-Fresh, and again will have him start on Tuesday. I'll set up a meeting with Mike and Raphael and Cal tomorrow afternoon so that I can talk to them about their assignments. That will also give us time to arrange to have our team infiltrate the two companies."

"What do I tell people?"

"As little as possible", said Ranger. "The fewer the people who know what is going on, the better it will be for the various players. For example, Raphael or Cal will be unable to do their job effectively and will be in danger if people know that they are undercover agents."

"Okay. I can do this", said Elena, but I wasn't sure if she was telling us that or whether she was trying to talk herself into it.

"Of course you can, El", said Ranger. "This will be simple. You 'hire' on Raphael and the meat company 'hires' on Cal, and you let them do their job. Try to put Raphael on jobs that would be associated with the meat, so he could perhaps be the person helping the regular person unloading the meat from the truck, could be the person assisting loading it into the freezer, etcetera. Anything that has to do with the meat should be done by Raphael and the current person who does the work. A sample of the meat should be tested when it arrives at the restaurant. After Raphael has followed the meat through the cycle, it would be good to test the meat to see if it is contaminated in any way. Then we'll have a better idea as to whether the meat is being contaminated at the restaurant or whether it is being contaminated elsewhere."

"Okay", said Elena. I didn't know how much information she was taking in, however. Her eyes looked glassy and as though she had checked out of the conversation. Ranger, however, looked like he had the situation well under control, and Elena took a deep breath and relaxed. Ranger, as always, inspired a vote of confidence.

I looked at Elena, at her rigid posture easing, and offered her some dinner again. "Ella has been cooking for three, and I'm barely eating enough for one", I said. "Ella will be very happy that someone was here to eat the food that was left over." I got up and walked into the kitchen. Elena and Ranger followed me. I got out the leftover casserole and placed it on the counter with an empty plate and some cutlery. I handed the plate to Elena.

Elena smiled. "I remember those days", she said. "It does get better." She sectioned out some dinner for herself, and I placed it in the microwave to heat up.

While the microwave was doing its thing, I poured Elena a cold glass of water. "I'd just be happy if it got better sooner", I said. "I've had enough of being sick."

Elena chuckled. "I understand."

"My sister didn't have to go through this to this degree. She seemed to be able to eat, no matter the stage of pregnancy she was at. Of course, she gained eighty pounds with her most recent pregnancy, so maybe it's a good thing that I'm not able to hold food down."

Elena smiled. "I think the most I gained was thirty-five pounds, and that was only because it was my first. With my subsequent births I was also running around taking care of my other children, and was looking after the restaurant, and between it all I only gained twenty-five pounds. However, in each case the babies were in the seven to eight pound range and it didn't matter how much weight I had gained. In all cases, the baby was healthy and I was healthy, and that's what really matters."

"That's true. With my sister, Val gained a lot of weight but the baby was around eight pounds each time. I had expected her to deliver a little piggy based on the quantities she was eating, but she had normal, healthy babies."

Elena laughed. "Do you have any cravings?" she said.

"Raisins", I said. "Ella has been making me these wonderful raisin scones, and I have at least one every day. I'm eating a lot of pretzels as well. I figure this baby is going to be one of those babies that loves carbs, since that seems to be all that I can keep down."

"But you had a chicken and vegetable bake for dinner tonight?"

"Yes. I have less of a problem eating dinner than any other meal of the day, so Ella tries to get my vegetables in then. And she always makes a soup for lunch, since I often have less of a problem keeping soup down than I do other meals. She'll often puree vegetables to put in the soup as well."

"We're bringing dinner when we come after Christmas. We'll make sure that we come with a soup dish."

"I'd appreciate it", I said, "and please don't take offence if I don't eat a lot."

Elena smiled. "None taken." A sad look flew across her face. "If we don't get this issue with our supplier settled out, then it might not be a good idea to eat our food."

I smiled at Elena. "You'll get it settled out", I said. "Ranger is on the job, and he always gets the person responsible."

I could tell that Ranger was thinking about smiling.

Shortly afterwards, Elena stood and said that she had to go back to Newark. With promises that we would call the next day to finish setting up everything – and to say how it went at the obstetrician's – I saw her out of the apartment with a hug and a kiss. Ranger decided to walk Elena to her car to make sure she got there safely. A few minutes later, he returned.

"What do you think?" I said as I sipped my peppermint tea.

"I think that I am glad that we are implementing a security system in the meat facility as well as in the restaurant. I had suggested implementing a system in the restaurant before, but my family didn't feel that it would add any extra protection or that there was a need to warrant the cost, despite the fact that I would be doing the work almost pro bono. I was planning on donating the time and just have the restaurant pay for the equipment needed. Now they are in a pickle because they didn't listen to me when I identified the problem."

"They must feel pretty terrible about the situation, especially knowing that the situation didn't have to come about. They must, to a certain degree, blame themselves."

"I think Elena is. I tried to normalize it even though I too thought this situation was partially brought on by their desire to hide their head in the sand."

"It's easily done", I said. "You know as well as I know that people often don't want to see their vulnerabilities or the weaknesses in their system. It's often a false complacency, but people are lulled into it just because they don't want to open their eyes."

"I know. It's just hard to see it happen to my family company. The restaurant is a good one, and I don't know if it will be able to recover from this."


	4. Chapter 4

Ranger let me sleep in the next morning until I only had an hour until my upcoming obstetrical appointment. He woke me up with a kiss and, as I sat up and moved my hair out of my face, I said, "I remember when you used to wake me up with coffee."

Ranger smiled slightly. "Did you want a coffee? I can make you a decaf." I think my face must have turned white, as Ranger grinned. "And that's why I don't wake you up with a coffee", he said. "In another month or two, I'll start making you a decaf to wake you up with."

I started breathing shallowly through my mouth and tried not to move too fast, and I had my morning conversation with God where I tried to negotiate with him. I told him that I would be a better person, that I wouldn't complain when I got a speeding ticket, that I'd stop eating junk food, that I'd go to church, that I'd go through my enforced bed rest with dignity and forbearance, just as long as he took away the nausea. God apparently had the same policy of not negotiating with people as the government had with terrorists, as his response was to make my stomach lurch. It had been the same for the last four weeks, and he apparently didn't negotiate with pregnant women any more today than he had the day before. I sprang to my feet and ran to the bathroom, and made it to the toilet in time to throw up my equivalent in body weight. God must have known that I was lying when I made all those promises.

Ranger rubbed my back and held my hair out of my face, and when I was finished he pulled me to my feet. "How about having some liquids?" he said. I moaned. "Ella left some sports drinks in the fridge for you."

"Thanks", I said.

Ranger left the bathroom as I brushed my teeth and jumped in the shower. I didn't take long before I was stepping out again. As I finished toweling off, Ranger walked into the bathroom with the sports drink. He knew me well. He had brought a red one – fruit punch flavor – because with it being a fruit punch flavor I could pretend that it was healthy.

I sipped at the drink as I dried my hair. I looked in the mirror at myself as I put the blow dryer away. I still looked very white, and I decided that I wouldn't put on makeup that morning. I had been finding that throwing up tended to make my mascara run, and the makeup stood out too starkly and highlighted how white my skin was.

I walked through from the bathroom to the dressing room, and quickly pulled out a pair of yoga pants and an oversized sweater. After getting dressed, I looked at Ranger. "Not bad. Including throw up time, it only took me twenty minutes."

Ranger smiled. "And you were able to hold down the sports drink, so you're doing well. That's the first time that you've been able to hold down anything before eleven o'clock in almost a month."

I paused, and then smiled. "Apparently God has a sense of humor."

"Why's that?"

"I noticed that we were out of raisins yesterday."

Ranger smiled. "Ella sent up a raisin scone, just in case you felt like trying something solid."

I grinned and Ranger shook his head and laughed. He followed me out to the front hallway, retrieved the raisin scone from the kitchen and handed it to me, and helped me put my coat on.

Half an hour later, Ranger was parking the car and I was eating the last bite of my scone. Since my stomach, although threatening to, didn't feel like it was about to come up, I considered the morning to be a success.

Ranger didn't drop me off at the doors to the obstetrician's. He had done that the week before, and a felon that I had been working with Joe to put behind bars approached me and tried to kidnap me. The felon called it serendipitous to have found me. I called it a pain in the ass. Using a combination of street fighting, aikido and other moves that Ranger had taught me over the last few months, I was able to get the felon down to the ground and put a pair of cuffs on him. Since he had kicked me in the stomach while I was doing that, Ranger wasn't taking the chance that a similar thing happened again.

Like the doctor had predicted, the wait this time to see him wasn't nearly as long as it had been the week before. At our last appointment, he'd had to do an emergency C-section and was late in arriving at the offices. While we had to wait two hours the week before, we only had to wait fifteen minutes this time. Since I had to pee, it was about fifteen minutes too long.

After the nurse weighed me, I found the washroom. When I emerged a few happy seconds later, I told the nurse that she might want to weigh me again. She laughed, but I was totally serious. I thought that whole bottle of sports drink had gone through me, and I thought I would be at least a pound lighter. What can I say? I was female, and the number on the scale mattered.

Of course, I had only gained one pound since before I had gotten pregnant. How I gained one pound, I wasn't sure. I wasn't even sure that I'd been able to hold down one pound of food in the last two months.

Ranger sat on the guest chair in the examining room as I sat on the examining bed. The doctor walked in seconds later and sat in front of his computer. He reviewed the ultrasound images. "The baby looks healthy and as though it is developing normally."

I let out a breath that I didn't even know I was holding.

"Let's talk about your stress levels", he said.

"My life isn't particularly stressful", I said. "I work two jobs. First, I work as a bounty hunter but I haven't done anything for the job since I first became aware that I was pregnant. It is through that job that I often will have to wrestle with skips, and I haven't wanted to take the chance that the baby gets hurt. My second job is a researcher in an office, and nothing happens in that job other than a fight to not fall asleep. I'm not relegated to lying down for twenty hours a day now, am I?"

The doctor smiled. "No. What you did was a good thing. I thought the baby would survive after last week's excitement, but to tell you the truth I wasn't totally sure. While predicting your baby's survival was a bit of a crap shoot last week, I have faith that everything will be fine now. However, I would recommend that you continue to keep your stress levels low. Your baby is a fighter and wants to stay in there, but you have to give the baby the best chance that it can have. Not fighting with a felon is a good start. Listening to your body is also a good start. If you feel particularly stressed, step back and take some time to relax. If you feel sick to your stomach, take time to eat slowly. Are you holding down liquids?"

"After about eleven in the morning I can hold down liquids and small amounts of food. Before eleven is iffy. I was able to hold down a sports drink this morning, and that's the first time in about a month that I've been able to hold down something before eleven."

"If you can't again tomorrow, don't be upset. The descent into and the climb out of morning sickness rarely is a straight line. It sounds like you are coming out of it, which is good. Things will likely look completely different in another month. Just recognize that things are changing and they are changing fast."

"So I don't have to lie down for twenty hours a day?"

"No, although I'd recommend that you take it easy and that you keep track of any discharge. If you have bleeding again, come in to see me immediately or, if it is outside office hours, go to the hospital. However, assuming there is no further bleeding, I'd recommend that you reduce your time in bed from twenty hours a day to ten. It is perfectly safe for you to go back to work in the office, although I'd still prefer for you not to roll around on the ground with skips."

"You and my mother both", I said. Ranger smiled as the doctor looked at me in confusion. "My mother has been trying to get me pregnant for years to force me to stop rolling around on the ground with skips."

"I hate to tell your mother, but no matter how much she tries she won't get you pregnant." I laughed as the doctor turned red. "I'm sorry. That joke was in poor taste."

I laughed again. "I don't mind. Seriously though, my mother has begged people in the grocery store, at the hair salon, at the butcher's, and I think she even paid for a billboard once. She has been on a mission to get me pregnant because she thinks that will make me stop taking in skips."

"Will it work?"

"I provide a valuable service to society. I like what I do and am proud to be doing it. While I don't want to capture those that are known to be violent or abnormally assertive or who have a known vendetta against bounty hunters, I like capturing the rest. Ranger and I have worked out a way to divide the skips up so that they get caught with the least amount of impact upon me. So it's working to a certain degree. Most skips I'm not picking up while I am pregnant, but after the baby is born I will still go on the tamer calls."

"I'm glad that you aren't going on the more violent calls while you are pregnant. The baby is hanging in there for regular activity, but like I don't think you should go out of your way to exercise, I also don't think you should be involved in any vigorous activity at work either. If you can sit at a desk and do research, I approve you going back to work. If it is rolling around on the ground with a skip, I'll write you up for sick leave. I don't want to hear of you doing anything violent or engaging in any sort of aggressive behavior. Can you do that?"

I swallowed hard and blew out a breath. "Okay", I said.

"Good. So that's my recommendation – reduction in stress levels, switch from skip tracing to an office job on a day-to-day basis, feet up as much as possible and sleeping for a minimum of ten hours a night, eat as much as you comfortably can, and see me again in another month. At our next appointment, we'll arrange for you to have another ultrasound done so that we can see the development, predict the delivery date, and determine – if you are interested – the sex. Do you have any questions?"

I shook my head and looked at Ranger. He didn't look like he had any questions either, so the doctor shook our hands and walked out of the examining room. Five minutes later, we had booked an appointment for four weeks away and we walked out of the office through the cold to the car. "What did you think of your appointment?" asked Ranger as he captured my hand and led me down the street.

"I like the doctor, although I think he was a little uncomfortable thinking of me rolling around on the ground with a skip. I think it was a little too 'Dog the Bounty Hunter' for him, and he couldn't understand why I would like a job like that."

"I know, but that is the reaction of most people to your job. They see the danger but they don't see the reward. Just think of your mother. Until recently, she thought of your job as being the most dangerous job out there for you, one that would be akin to being a smash-up derby driver or a shark trainer or a high-level acrobat artist." He paused. "Although, now that I think about it, the acrobat artist isn't that dangerous due to the nets underneath."

"You apparently don't know my sense of coordination. I'm sure that, if I was an acrobat artist, not only would it be a definite that I would fall, but I likely would miss the nets and would go splatting onto the ground beside them."

Ranger laughed. "I can't believe that you are that uncoordinated."

I smiled. "You are talking to the person who decided she was going to be a baton twirler in school. The baton got away from me and landed in a tuba."

"Yes, but you weren't a cheerleader. Being an acrobat artist is more like being a cheerleader than a baton twirler."

"I tried out for the cheerleading squad. It was a disaster."

"What happened?"

"I wasn't the most athletic person trying out, so I was one of the people that they put on the bottom of the pyramid. I was supposed to hold up the person above me. While the person was climbing up on me, I was fine. However, when the person jumped in the air and tried to do a back flip, I was supposed to catch her. The only problem was that a hornet came and was flying around, and I don't like hornets."

A smile played around Ranger's lips. "Do I want to know what happened?"

"I screamed and took a step away, the cheerleader came down and since I wasn't there to catch her, she landed on the ground on her head and ended up having to wear a neck brace for the next month as her muscles healed from the trauma. I was called Stiffie Stephie for the next year. My grandmother got excited because she thought it was a sexual reference, when in reality it was because of the stiff neck that I gave Chastity."

"Did you give Chastity permanent damage?"

"I don't think so. She was back cheering a couple of months later and is now a dancer at Kinky Boots in Hamilton Township."


	5. Chapter 5

Ranger and I decided to go to my parents and mooch some lunch. I hadn't seen them in a week and a half, and I thought my mother would be worried about me. The last I had seen her I had been bleeding, and I had revealed that I was pregnant and there was a good chance that I was miscarrying the baby.

Ranger and I drove to my parents' house. My father had been up on the ladder on the weekend, and had put up the Christmas lights. You could see the indents of the ladder in the snow, and the flattened snow from where my father had fallen off the ladder. Every year was the same. At exactly two weeks before Christmas, no matter the weather, my father would get up on the ladder and hang the Christmas lights. Invariably, he would ask my grandmother to hold the ladder so that he was safe, and invariably my grandmother would forget that she was supposed to be holding the ladder and would go do something else. Which meant that, invariably, my father would fall on the ground in the snow, and the neighborhood would hear my father's impressive knowledge of Italian swear words. I don't know why my father always picked my grandmother to hold the ladder. But even more than my confusion over that, I didn't know why my father didn't just leave the lights up after the Christmas season was over. But no, two weeks after Christmas my father would again climb the ladder, again ask my grandmother to hold it, and again fall on the ground when my grandmother was distracted and no longer looking after my father. It was one of my parents' holiday traditions.

My parents' house was a duplex in an area of Trenton affectionately known as the Burg. It had pale yellow siding and a walkway up to the dark red door that was currently lined with dead plants half-covered in snow. There was a large tree out the front that provided good shade, and the street was relatively quiet at the worst of times and positively dead at the best. This was an unfortunate fact for my grandmother. She lived for gossip and loved to be the first one with it, and living on such a quiet street was a disappointment to her.

The house was small, with a living room, dining room and kitchen all shotgunned along the main floor, and three small bedrooms and a bathroom on the upper. It was where I had grown up, and to me it would always be home.

My mother, father and grandmother lived in the house. My sister, Val, lived with her five kids and her husband just a short distance away. They had tried living with my parents for a while to save money, but my mother felt like the old woman in the shoe and slowly started to wonder how much arsenic it would take to reduce the number of people living in the house. When I recognized that look in her eye – after all, I had taken some scary murderers in with the same look in their eye – I lent my apartment to Valerie and Albert. However, a one-bedroom apartment, although it was good for my mom to get them out of my parents' home, was not a good solution for Val, so I helped her find the place she was currently renting. Their house was also small and rent was cheap, but it at least had three bedrooms. I didn't know what would happen when Edmund, my seven-week old nephew, grew older. With five kids and only one of them male, I thought they were in a bit of a pickle. I was glad it was their problem and not mine. I think my mother felt the same.

My parents had lived in their house since they had gotten married thirty-five years before. My grandmother was a more recent addition. In a seemingly-apparent bid to ensure my parents didn't miss having teenagers in the house, my grandmother seemed to be regressing in maturity as time went on. When I was little, she was the kind of grandmother that I enjoyed visiting. She never told me that I was being silly, she always listened to my stories and she let me eat my dessert first. Since then, she'd become elderly. She had white sausage curls marching across her pink scalp, stooping shoulders and eyes clouded with cataracts. Her body was failing her where her mind was not, and no matter how elderly she became she would never be old. She was still the kind of grandmother that I enjoyed visiting and she still let me eat my dessert first.

Luckily, Ranger liked my grandmother just as much as I did. This was a good thing, since my grandmother was extremely attracted to Ranger and frequently liked to talk about the size of his package – in front of him. Since she had walked in on him over a year ago and had actually seen his package, she thought that she was well qualified to talk about it. Ranger was the sort of person who didn't get perturbed about anything, but my grandmother made him pause. I kept reminding him that my grandmother was the sort of stock that I came from, but luckily my grandmother hadn't scared him away yet.

While my grandmother was always a breath of fresh air, my mother and father were the perfect foils to her. My mother was solid and dependable. She might chew me out the whole time, but I could always count on her to be there when I needed her, whether that was with a cuddle and a cookie or a good swift kick in the ass. She had given up her life to be a stay-at-home mother. It was only recently that I learned that she had always wanted to be a nurse.

My father was the strong and silent type. Despite never having imagined that he would ever have to live with my grandmother, he had acclimatized to the need relatively well. When he retired from the post office he seriously considered offing her, and to tell you the truth I think he still periodically dreamed of it. However, since my mother got rid of my father's gun and hid the rat poison when my grandmother moved in, murder would be a bit harder to do. And since murder of my grandmother would upset my mother, my father decided not to go out and buy another gun.

Instead, my father elected to get another job. He drove a taxi in his spare time and had a few regular fares that he took to and from the train station. Those fares funded the rest of the time he spent away from the house, at his social club. I didn't exactly know what he did there, but I think it involved gossip and was little different than the time my grandmother spent at the beauty parlor each week. He just didn't get a wash and set along with it.

My grandmother was standing at the front door, the door open but the storm door shut, and was calling out her observations to my mother. My mother was probably doing laundry or prepping food for dinner. I could hear my mother calling out her request to close the door and stop heating all the Burg, but my mother's complaints stopped when Grandma yelled out that Ranger and I were there. Grandma opened the door with a smile on her face. "Isn't this a nice surprise?" she said. "Should you be on your feet, dear?"

We walked into the house and kicked off our boots, hung up our coats, and I dropped my purse on the floor at the entryway. Ranger shut the front door to stop the heat loss as Grandma led us through to the back of the house, to the true heart of the home. The kitchen was small and barely fit a small four-seat table shoved against the wall, but it always smelled good. It was my mother's domain. My father's was his recliner in front of the television in the front room. If he was at home, that was often where you'd find him. My mother, however, was almost constantly in the kitchen.

Despite the small size of the room, my mother was able to turn out world-class meals without breaking a sweat. Which was a coincidence, because I was able to eat world-class meals without breaking a sweat. At least, normally I could. For some reason, I hadn't inherited that ability to cook from my mother, and I was just glad that cooking was something Ranger liked to do. I hoped that he would teach our child how to cook as well. If it was up to me, the most I could teach our child was how to follow the instructions on the back of the frozen lasagna before you put it in the oven to cook, and to teach our child to put on extra cheese for the last ten minutes of the cooking time. The extra cheese was how I made the meal gourmet.

I sat down at the table, and my mother poured me a glass of milk and a cup of coffee for Ranger, my grandmother and herself. "How are you feeling?" she said.

"Pretty good", I replied. Ranger settled beside me and rested his arm across the back of the chair behind me. "I haven't had any bleeding in a few days, and the doctor has cleared me to go back to work."

"That's great, Steph", said my mother. "Would you like lunch? We were just about to eat. We have fresh buns and deli meat from Giovichinni's, potato and macaroni salad, and sliced tomatoes and lettuce. It's not fancy, but it will fill the tummy."

"That would be great, thanks", I said.

That was like a sounding bell had gone off, and my mother and grandmother jumped up and started to put the various meats and cheeses on a platter, wash and slice the tomatoes and the lettuce, and place the mayonnaise and mustard on the table. My grandmother passed out plates and cutlery as my mom sliced some buns, and within five minutes lunch had been served.

I took a bun and cut it in half and put the remaining half on Ranger's plate. He was more of a tossed green salad kind of person, and the mayonnaise-y macaroni salad just wouldn't do it for him. He'd eat it to be polite, but I knew that he'd prefer to eat another half of a sandwich that he'd be able to load up with tomatoes and lettuce and only have a slight scraping of mayonnaise.

Ranger smiled at me and took a bun for himself and prepared his sandwiches. When everybody had their meals in front of them, we all started to eat.

My mother looked at my plate. I didn't have any salads and only had half a sandwich. I had spread very little mayonnaise on the bun, no mustard, but had put on a bit of bologna and some provolone and some lettuce. "Are you feeling sick?" she said.

"Yeah. A week ago it was only in the morning, but it has now progressed to being all day. I keep hoping that it will get better, and the doctor said that things will likely be a lot different in another month. It's just that a month seems like a very long time away."

"I understand that", said my mother. "I was quite sick when I was pregnant too, and those nine months felt like the longest nine months that ever happened. I hope that this stage of your pregnancy is over quickly, and you get to the part where you can enjoy it."

"What part is that?" I said. I smiled. "The backaches and breast tenderness? The fatigue and food cravings?"

My mother laughed. "No, the chance to stand on a bus, rub your tummy and moan to get a seat given to you. The ability to ask people what they are talking about when they wish you congratulations and then try not to laugh as you see them sweat."

"That's it? That's all you've got that's good about being pregnant?" I said.

My mother laughed again. "If pregnancy was a book, dear, a man would have removed all the pages." She paused and looked at Ranger. "No offense, Ranger."

Ranger smiled. "None taken. I missed a lot of this with Rachel, since I was overseas when she went through her pregnancy. I came home for the four weeks following Julie's birth, but the rest is all new to me. I feel bad that Steph is feeling as sick as she has been. As I have said to her, I wish that I could take her discomfort away."

"If men had to deal with pregnancy", said my grandmother, "the world wouldn't be overpopulated."

"But it will all be worth it when the baby is in your arms", said my mother.

"What are you doing for Christmas?" said my grandmother. "Are you planning on coming over for Christmas morning?"

"I'll talk to Ranger about it", I said, "but my first instinct is to say no. Mornings aren't very good for me, and being in a house with one bathroom and me hunched over the toilet for most of the morning doesn't sound like a lot of fun for anyone. I'd like to be at home in my pajamas, have a sleep-in and a slow morning in front of the fire."

"I can understand that", said my mother. "If you change your mind, you know where we are."

"What do you and your family do for the holidays?" my grandmother asked Ranger.

"Traditionally, I spend Christmas Eve with my family and, after midnight mass, drive back to Trenton. I stay around the house on Christmas and am the supervisor on call so that Tank can go home and spend some time with his family. He usually drives to see his family after I get in from mass, so I arrive around two in the morning and he leaves around two. He gets to his family in time for opening Christmas presents with this nieces and nephews, then he stays for a couple of days. When he gets back, I spend some time with my family. We both work on New Year's. This year, however, we're not spending Christmas Eve with my parents. Steph and I decided that this year coming up will be a bit harder for Tank. He's going to be covering for me at first when the baby comes home from the hospital and there won't be a lot of time off that he can take. Consequently, we're giving him from December fifteenth to the twenty-ninth off. His family wanted to take a Christmas cruise anyway, and this lets him join his family. Since he doesn't see them often, I am glad that he is taking the time. I think he is quite excited about it. But for us, Steph and I will be at home for Christmas Eve and Christmas and will just have some time between the two of us."

"The thirtieth, as well, will be spent with Ranger's family coming for dinner. They have kindly offered to make the dinner for us. Elena, Ranger's sister, came the other night and seemed to be impressed by Ranger's kitchen. And Ranger has to go out of town on business on the second of January for a couple of weeks, so we'll try to get all the commitment ceremony details hammered out during the holidays as well."

"It sounds like it will be busy", said my mother.

"It will be, but that's okay", I said. "It will be especially busy with Tank taking time off. Ranger will be covering for him and doing both Tank's job and his own, both during regular work hours as well as on-call hours."

"Tank deserves it", said Ranger. "He is an incredibly hard worker who hardly ever takes time off, even when he has paid time off to take. For him, work is his life. It's not good for him, which is why I'm so glad that he's taking the time that he is with his family."

"I think he would say the same about you", I said.

Ranger smiled. "I can see that I'll be slowing down quite a bit over the next few months." He leaned over and kissed me. I smiled.

I looked down at the plates. Ranger had finished his one-and-a-half sandwiches. My mom and grandmother had each finished their sandwiches and salads. I had finished a quarter of my half, and what I had eaten was threatening to come up again. "Do you mind if I take this sandwich to go?" I said.

My mother smiled and got to her feet. She put the sandwich in a baggie, and then put a piece of leftover pineapple upside-down cake into another baggie. She placed them on the table in front of me before putting the lunch ingredients away.

"That was an excellent lunch", I said, "but I know that Ranger has to get back to the office for a meeting. We mainly came so that we could tell you in person that the doctor lifted my restrictions and that I was now cleared to go back to my regular life."

"That's good, Steph", said my mother. "I'm really glad you came and told us."

I got up and led Ranger to the front of the house, put on my boots and coat, picked up my purse and put my care package inside, and turned to my mother and grandmother. I gave them each a hug, followed by Ranger giving them each a hug, and a few minutes later was safely ensconced in the car and heading home.

"You didn't want to spend Christmas with your family?" said Ranger. "I was surprised when you said that. I thought for sure that you'd want to."

"No, I want to spend it with you and, when we have kids, I will want to spend Christmas morning with you and the kids. Maybe I'm just being selfish, but I won't want to have our kids ever wonder whether Santa will know where they are spending their Christmas. I don't mind travelling into Newark or to my family for Christmas dinner, but I want Christmas morning at home, just you and the kids and me. I figured, if that was where we were going with this relationship, that it would be better to start out our relationship the way that we want to continue."

"Your mother was disappointed."

"Yes, but when I was growing up, I never spent Christmas morning anywhere other than at home. My mother should be used to the concept."


	6. Chapter 6

I walked into my office, just nicely back from telling Tank the results of my doctor's appointment, and Miguel's face broke out into a relieved smile. "Chica! You're back! How are you feeling?"

"Good, thanks. Apparently we got another large account yesterday, but the names haven't come through yet."

"Okay. Does this mean that I'm off patrol for a while longer?"

"I'm afraid so. Ranger doesn't want me working overtime for the next little while until I get my feet wet again. What is the status of the research accounts?"

Miguel had just finished going over the standing of the different files when Ranger came into my office and shut the door. He looked at me and smiled, then turned to Miguel. "I appreciate that you've been working so hard on the research desk while Steph was gone."

"It's not my first choice of things to do, but I wanted to give Steph time to recover from the flu bug she had."

"And she'll need about another seven months to recover. In the meantime, she'll be working on the research files, but she'll work from our home office so that she's nice and close to a washroom. At least, she will until the morning sickness abates."

Miguel grinned. "You're pregnant? That's fabulous! I don't even mind doing research now, chica."

I laughed. "We still aren't telling anyone and won't be for another couple of weeks, but we thought you'd like to know. I had gotten into a fight with a felon and he gave me a good punch to my stomach, which caused me to bleed. For the last ten days, I've been on bed rest. Today, however, the doctor said the baby looks healthy and the bleeding has stopped, so I'm allowed to work the standard forty-hour work week again. I won't, however, be allowed to work overtime. That's another reason that I'll be working in our home office. Ranger wants me to have the ability to go for a nap at any time it's needed."

"Anything you need, I'm there for you."

"Thanks, Miguel. I appreciate that", I said.

"I have some names that I'm going to shoot over", said Ranger. "They just came in. I want you to go as deep as you can and it is definitely a priority over everything else on your desk. I'll get Steph to explain to you what is going on." He turned to me. "Five o'clock, and then upstairs for a nap before dinner."

"Aye, aye, captain", I said with a salute.

Ranger's face turned soft. "Smartass."

I tried not to smile. "I'm sorry – was that not the correct response to your command?"

Ranger thought about smiling. "I'm a unit commander", he said. "Deal with it."

I laughed. "It's okay. I love alpha males. Besides, you'll never know if I am lying down or not."

Ranger sighed and I grinned.

"I'll work from our home office from five to six", said Ranger.

I laughed. I knew that Ranger would do just that, and it made me feel good to know that he cared so much. He would drag me, kicking and screaming, for a nap just because he would know that it was the best thing for me.

He wouldn't have to work very hard to get me into bed right at that moment. I was exhausted, and I didn't even have the ability to drink coffee to wake me up. There were definite negatives about being pregnant.

Ranger shook Miguel's hand and left the office. I turned to Miguel and explained to him what was going on with Ranger's family. "Oh, boy", said Miguel. "They picked the wrong people to piss off. I look forward to seeing what Ranger does to them."

"I know", I said. "He's pretty ticked with whoever is sabotaging them."

I checked my emails and saw the list of the restaurant employees that Elena had sent through. She said that she'd get the list of abattoir employees to us later in the day.

I divided the list that we had with the restaurant employees into two, and let Miguel work on one while I went upstairs. Despite the way the bed was calling me, I was able to investigate four of the five staff members by the end of the day. Miguel was able to get through all of his five, and at the end of the day he told me that he would start the abattoir's the next day. Ranger had been able to get that list to us shortly after we started to look into the various restaurant employees.

I read over Miguel's analysis, and was glad to see that there wasn't anything that stood out as unusual. Like me, he found the staff to be trouble-free and hard-working. There was nothing in their pasts that indicated a concern.

When Ranger came up, I reported to him what I had found, and Ranger told me that Raphael was now living with his parents for the next few days, and that Cal was living at a hotel. "Raphael got the better end of the deal", said Ranger. "Not only does he get to stay in a very comfortable bed, but he also gets access to great food."

I smiled. "That's true", I said. "Your parents are pretty fantastic cooks."

"They will be pulling out all the stops as well", said Ranger. "They will be spoiling him and telling him stories about me as a child, and my reputation will be shredded with my staff."

I laughed. "What can they say that your staff doesn't already know?"

"They might tell him of the time that I brought home a bird with a broken wing. I nursed the bird back to health and, when it was better, I let it go."

"Why would that be upsetting to you for people to know that?"

"I cried when the bird flew away, and for years afterwards looked for it. I still find myself looking for it at times."

"Why is that upsetting to you? Because you cried?"

"Real men don't cry."

I made a face. "That's the biggest load of bullshit I have ever heard."

Ranger laughed. "Seriously, my mother will show the pictures of me bare-assed from when I was a baby. I've told her not to, that he is my work colleague, but my mother thinks those pictures are cute."

"I've seen those pictures. They are cute."

Ranger shook his head. "See what I mean? Real men aren't cute."

I laughed.

"Seriously, it's bad enough that my mother showed you those pictures. It's terrible for her to show them to my staff."

I laughed again, and then said, "is Raphael there now?"

"He is. He texted me to let me know that he had arrived and that he found the place without any problems. I have told my parents to let him arrive at the restaurant himself, so that there is no link between him and my family. They aren't too used to the cloak and dagger stuff, so I hope they'll be able to pull it off."

"I think you underestimate them. Just be glad that my grandmother isn't related to you."

"I am, more than I can say." I smiled and punched him lightly in the arm, and Ranger laughed. "Why do you think that it's a good idea that your grandmother isn't related to me?"

"She would revel in all the cloak and dagger stuff, and she'd probably wear her bulletproof vest to the restaurant to do her shift. I'm sure that wouldn't go over well with the patrons." About two months ago, my grandmother found out that I wore a bulletproof vest when I went out to capture skips. She thought that was a wonderful idea and promptly went out and bought one for herself. While she didn't have a need for protection against bullets, she had found it to be effective at protecting herself from Grandma Bella's curses. Grandma Bella was Joe Morelli's grandmother, an evil monster who masqueraded as an innocuous old woman. People were scared to make eye contact with her in case she cursed them. Joe had told me frequently that she was a lovely woman who was just misunderstood, and that her curses were just the confused mutterings of a lonely old woman. I, however, knew that she was related to the devil based on the fact that her curses worked. Unfortunately for me, I had extensive experience with Grandma Bella's curses. So did my grandmother and while my grandmother had fared better than me from the experience, she had been affected enough to appreciate having some sort of protection against her.

I don't know what my grandmother did this time to incur Grandma Bella's wrath. Despite Grandma Bella's propensity to curse people with little to no provocation, my grandmother didn't let that stop her. Never one to shy away from a fight, she just as frequently told Grandma Bella off for her treatment of people as Grandma Bella cursed her, and had even gotten into a few fist fights with the woman. Apparently my grandmother was just as susceptible to the curses as I am. While my grandmother hadn't lost all her hair or broken out in weeping hives yet, like with me I thought it was only a matter of time.

So my grandmother was thrilled to discover that Grandma Bella's curses didn't work on her when she was wearing her bulletproof vest. I thought that was reason enough to wear bulletproof clothing when I was out and about in the neighborhood, and had started to wear my bulletproof motorcycle jacket that Ranger got me for my birthday as my regular winter jacket. With the bulletproof material lining the leather, the coat was quite warm. Ranger was happy that I was wearing it because of its safety features. I was happy to wear it as well. It was stylish and suited my aesthetic. Like my watch containing a tracking device, it was another secret weapon that Ranger had outfitted me with to protect me from whatever life threw my way.

Ranger laughed. "We need to consider getting her more bulletproof clothing for Christmas."

I smiled. "While my grandmother would consider you her favorite grandchild if you did that, I already bought her a present that will be from the two of us."

"I'm not her grandchild."

"If you bought her bulletproof clothing, she'd adopt you."

Ranger's lips twitched in amusement. "What did we get her for Christmas?"

"You have to understand, we don't go overboard on Christmas gifts. It's a good thing, since Valerie and Albert, with their five kids and low income, can't afford huge gifts. So our gifts are in the range of twenty-five dollars a person. From both of us, this gives us fifty dollars to work with."

He nodded.

"I got her a royal purple sweater, a purple silk scarf, and matching nail polish that she could wear to funerals. As she has often said, if the Queen could wear purple to a funeral, then my grandmother could as well." My grandmother was a professional mourner of sorts. She loved going to funerals and went regularly, whether she knew the deceased or not. She loved going for the gossip and the chance to meet up with some old friends. She loved evaluating the display of the deceased and rating the hair, makeup, clothes and jewelry of the dead person, and she loved going for the cookies. The funeral home that she preferred baked their cookies from scratch, and my grandmother claimed them to be the best-tasting cookies around. She would go to the funeral home on average twice a week, and would go more frequently if she actually knew the person.

Despite my grandmother's enjoyment of attending funerals, it was always a little hairy to accompany her. It was all well and good if the caskets were open for people to see the deceased, but my grandmother took offence when the caskets were closed. She felt that, if she took the time to get dressed up and attend the viewing or funeral, she should be rewarded with the ability to see the body. She felt so strongly about it that she would often lift the lid for a little look-see if the casket was closed. Since this often upset the grieving family, the funeral home had taken to nailing the caskets shut. My grandmother was a very determined woman, however, and shortly after she realized that the caskets were nailed shut she exchanged her gun in her purse for a pry bar. Give her five minutes next to the casket and she could pop that baby open, much to the upset of the remaining family and friends.

There were a few times that there was a closed casket and, by intent or by accident, my grandmother was unable to get close enough to the casket to pry the lid open. I had seen, in those cases, my grandmother rush the casket and body check the coffin to try to knock the casket off the stand and onto the floor out of desperation. Her theory was that the casket would hit the ground and smash into smithereens, thereby opening the casket up for her viewing. I had experienced this horror a handful of times. Only once did the casket lid pop open. When it did, the body inside bounced out of the casket and his nose broke off from the force of the fall.

The funeral home directors didn't know what to do about my grandmother. She was elderly and all her friends were elderly, and they didn't want to take the chance that they missed out on business like they would if Grandma and her cronies all decided that Stiva's wasn't the best place to look after them. But while they didn't want to turn away business, they also couldn't let Grandma desecrate the deceased or show disrespect for their patrons' wishes. It was a fine balancing act that they solved by refusing to let Grandma eat any cookies on the days when she had been particularly out of hand. I didn't know how to tell them, but denying my grandmother cookies was probably the most effective punishment anyway. My mother had been doing the same thing for years. It was how she punished me when I was growing up, and I had found that there was little I wouldn't do to avoid being refused dessert.

"I can see that she'd like that. What did you get everyone else?"

"I got a car magazine subscription for old muscle cars for my father, went together with Valerie to purchase a monthly coffee subscription for my mother and I got another for Ella and Luis, and am planning on taking out Angie and Mary Alice for some individual time with me." Angie and Mary Alice were my two older nieces. I was intending to take Angie, the bookworm, to the bookstore for a reading and to buy a book of her choice, and since Mary Alice was horse crazy I had arranged to take her to a stable and to go for a ride. "I bought clothing for the three babies, since Valerie and Albert are short of money and would appreciate new clothing for the kids. Same for Val and Albert. I got Julie a knitted throw blanket that she had said that she liked when she was here last time. I thought that she'd be able to use it in her room when we have our new apartment built. I got Lula a Tile Mate, that thing that works by Bluetooth to help you find your keys or your phone. While Lula is a little scatterbrained and periodically loses her keys, Connie doesn't need that present the same. I got Connie a gold cuff bracelet that I thought was pretty."

"You sound like you are almost finished your shopping."

"I only have a few odds and ends left to purchase, things that – if I couldn't get them – wouldn't destroy the gift but that would make the gift infinitely better, and the gifts we are getting for Tank, Nate and Morelli. I also have purchased half of your stocking, but still have to purchase the other half. Unfortunately, I need to brave the mall to buy those last items."

"I don't have a clue as to what to put in your stocking", said Ranger. "I'm not very good at this gift-giving thing."

"Didn't you and Rachel exchange stockings?"

"No. We were only together for about month. I had met her at the start of my leave, and the relationship was dying out when she told me that she was pregnant. Like with you, we'd been using contraception but for some reason it didn't work."

I grinned. "You have supersperm."

Ranger thought about smiling. "Whatever kind of sperm that I have, I married Rachel before I returned to the base. I got a special, unpaid leave when Julie was born. I took four weeks off to get to know Julie and to support Rachel. By the time I left again Rachel and I had pretty well decided that we would be getting a divorce. When my tour was up, Julie was a year and a half, and I returned to the States to file papers. By that time, Rachel was seeing Ron and four years later, she married him. Ron and Rachel really are good parents, and I think Ron sees Julie as one of his own."

"I know that they are good parents, but I'm glad that Julie wants to be part of our family as well. I always think that children turn out better the more people that love them."

"I can see that. It would certainly improve their self-esteem."

"Just think of our baby. Our baby will have about eighty over-protective uncles who all will treasure our children. At that rate, the baby will have the best self-esteem out of any child around."

Ranger smiled.

I yawned, and Ranger took my hand and led me to the bed. He pulled down the duvet as I wiggled my way out of my bra and sighed with relief. "Is your bra uncomfortable?" said Ranger.

"Yes and no", I said. "My breasts are so sensitive that the bra provides a bit of protection to them. However, it is also too small and is too restraining and is uncomfortable for that reason. I really need to go out and purchase some more bras."

"I'd be happy to take you. I could provide some insight, an unbiased opinion if you will, into how the bras are fitting."

I laughed. "Don't get your hopes up. I was thinking that I should buy nursing bras as I don't think that I will grow any more, and nursing bras are not sexy lingerie."

Ranger made a face as he helped me lie down on the bed. "I'll take one for the team."

I laughed again. "That's so good of you."


	7. Chapter 7

I researched the one remaining restaurant employee as well as started researching the abattoir employees after dinner. I worked about four hours on the files, and by the end of the evening I had discovered another eight people who didn't apparently do anything wrong. I did, however, have another thirty-two people to go on my list, and Miguel had another forty on his. I hoped that we'd find a connection there somewhere. I wanted to take the person doing the sabotage down. That person could do irreparable damage. Sure, it was just food poisoning but for someone with a compromised immune system, the poisoning could kill them. In my view, the poisoner had just gotten lucky so far. However, if I was arresting him or her I would charge them with attempted murder. It was the only charge that made sense to me.

I was incredibly happy about the restrictions being lifted – especially because I was worried about getting my Christmas shopping done on time. Grandma had called me just before bed and had asked me to take her out shopping the next day for an hour or two. She wanted to get some things for my mother for Christmas, and she didn't want my mother to know what they were or what store they were bought in. I made arrangements to pick her up at one o'clock. I figured that it would be after the worst of the nausea had passed, yet was early enough to avoid all the families with screaming brats. Most of the little kids would be home having their afternoon nap and the older kids would be in school. Knowing Grandma, I'd have to wake her from her afternoon nap in the car. She always told me that she wasn't tired, but she always fell asleep anyway. She said that it was the monotonous drone of the engine that did it to her. Personally I thought it was old age. It seemed that the young and the old both needed naps to get through their day. Of course, so did I currently, and I didn't know which end of the spectrum I fit into.

I had arranged with Valerie that, for a gag gift, we would get a picture of us on Santa's knee. My mother had taken Val and me religiously to see Santa when we were younger. Every year she bought a picture. She displayed them in a basket on the buffet in the dining room. They were her most prized Christmas decoration. I personally liked how they chronicled Val's and my growth over the years. Since Grandma was coming with me to the mall, Val and I thought we'd attempt to do this picture while my grandmother was there to look after the babies.

I went to bed shortly before Ranger. He was still swamped with work, and needing to take a few hours away from our day by going to the obstetrician's hadn't come at a good time. He had arranged with Mike to meet in his office at ten the next morning. They would be travelling into Newark together so that they could discuss their findings on the way back to Trenton, and come to some sort of agreement as to what needed to be done.

I was half asleep when Ranger came to bed, and as he snuggled in and parts of him prodded the small of my back, I think I growled at him. "Shh", said Ranger. "Just ignore it."

I started to wake myself up. "This is unfair to you", I said. "I should be able to help you out, even if the doctor told me that I'd have to wait another week." I rolled over and kissed his pecs.

Ranger threaded his fingers through my hair and gave my head a scalp massage. I closed my eyes in bliss.

"I can wait a few more weeks", said Ranger softly. "I'd rather be together the next time we make love. I want to make love with the lights on so that I can see the differences in your body, the differences our baby is making to you. I'd like to worship you, and to express my love for you physically. I'd like to hear you scream my name until you lose your voice, and I'd like to do all that without you being in danger of losing your dinner. If that means that we don't do anything until you are past this morning sickness, that's okay. If that means that we don't make love again until after the baby is born, that's okay as well. I can wait." He kissed my nose. "You're worth waiting for."

Tears came to my eyes and I sniffled. "Thanks, Ranger", I said. I buried my nose into his chest, sniffed the comforting scent of Bulgari Green, and soon tumbled into sleep.

I don't think I moved at all during my sleep, and I woke up at five thirty the next morning still cuddled into Ranger. Ranger's watch alarm had woken me up, and he was twisting around to shut it off before it disturbed me. "M'wake", I said.

Ranger quickly disentangled himself from where I was hanging on to him, and he got out of bed before dropping a kiss on my forehead. "Go back to sleep, babe", he said. "I'll wake you in a couple of hours." He went into the bathroom and used the facilities and brushed his teeth and, when he was done, he changed into exercise wear. He left the apartment five minutes after the time his watch alarm first went off.

Ranger's advice to go back to sleep was good advice, but unfortunately I couldn't follow it. The watch alarm had woken me, but in actuality I thought it was Ranger detaching himself from my suction grip that woke me the most. I flipped around a few times, but I couldn't get comfortable. The nausea was overpowering and I moaned uncomfortably.

I decided that it would be better for me to get up and do some work for the day, try to eat a few pretzels in hopes that they would settle my stomach, and to drink some ginger ale. I was thirsty, but the only thing I thought I had a chance of keeping down was the flat soda. There was something about the ginger ale that calmed my stomach. I guessed it was the ginger in it.

One time, when Ella thought I had been pregnant and I wasn't, she made me a hot ginger tea. It had more ginger in it than the soda, but it tasted disgusting and even though I hadn't been sick at the time that I drank it, the hot drink turned my stomach and I almost threw up anyway. I was pleased that Ella hadn't made any for me since.

I padded through to the kitchen moaning and rubbing my stomach. "I hope you're worth it", I said to the baby. "I hope you'll be one of those babies that sleeps through the night from the first moment that you're born, one of those babies that cries little and smiles lots, one of those babies that is sick rarely. I don't know if I could take it if you were a sickly child. I'm just glad there is just one of you in there."

I sipped at the soda and thought it would stay down, and yawned widely. I was still tired, but I didn't know what to do. Lying down seemed to make the nausea worse, and it seemed self-indulgent when I had already slept seven hours. I yawned again, and then decided that a shower might wake me up. I walked through to the bathroom, pulled off the t-shirt and panties that I had worn to bed and inspected my stomach in the mirror. I felt it. It felt firmer than before, and I thought there might be a slight bump there. My waist wasn't as defined either. I stood to the side and looked at myself in the mirror. I didn't think that anyone would notice, but there was definitely a bulge. It looked like I had eaten a large meal, and I thought that I'd have to wear my eatin' pants when I got dressed. That's what Lula and I called that one pair of pants that had incredible stretch to them that were what we wore to Thanksgiving dinner so that we could gorge ourselves comfortably. Luckily, being someone who gorged herself on a regular basis, I had a number of pairs of eatin' pants.

I showered and dried my hair, then went to the closet to choose my clothes for the day. Knowing that I would be having my picture taken later, I didn't want to look like a slob, yet dressing comfortably still seemed essential. I pulled out a black mini skirt with an elastic waistband and thought I would wear it with my knee-high riding boots. I paired the skirt with a white ballerina shirt and thought the outfit would go well with my black motorcycle jacket. I wanted to wear my leopard-print scarf with it, but I didn't want to put the scarf on until I was more assured of not throwing up. I didn't want to take the chance that I would get vomit on the scarf – I liked it, and the silk was hand-wash only.

By the time Ranger had returned to the apartment, I had successfully consumed half a bottle of ginger ale and a few handfuls of pretzels. I felt just as terrible, but I was able to keep them down. I took that as a success. While Ranger had his shower, I put on my makeup. I had to do the full monty. I spent an extra amount of time putting on concealer to hide my dark circles, covered it up with a BB cream, and added blush to hide the paleness of my cheeks. I even put on eyeliner and shadow and, knowing of the relationship between the number of coats of mascara to the success of the day, I put on three coats of eye gunk. I thought that, with the amount of mascara, I would be covered for the day – and if the day didn't go as well as I had anticipated, I would at least go down looking good.

I finished putting on my makeup about the same time as Ranger stepped out of the shower, and his eyes lightened as he looked at me. "You look fabulous", he said.

I smiled. "Then the makeup is doing its thing."

Ranger smiled slightly. "I think it's you, not the makeup."

I laughed. "Trust me, it's definitely the makeup."

"Still not feeling good?" he said as he toweled off.

"No", I said with disgust. "But the good news is that I just feel awful. I haven't thrown up today at all."

"That's great, babe. Maybe this is the start of the nausea disappearing."

"I hope so." I sat down on the closed toilet seat as Ranger wrapped his towel around his waist and filled the sink with hot water. He got out his soap and brush and razor, wet the brush, and proceeded to work the soap into a lather. He spread the lather on his face and slowly scraped off his whiskers.

"The way I figure it, having just been observing it, you started to feel sick about week six of your pregnancy and it steadily got worse until last week, or week ten. If it recedes with the same speed as it came, this means that you will feel completely better in another month."

"Great. I have another month of this to look forward to?"

"But remember, you'll feel steadily better and better over that month until at the end of the month you'll be able to eat but will just feel a bit queasy. You're over half-way through this part of your pregnancy. You're getting there."

I sighed. "I wish I'd get there a lot sooner."

"Babe." Saying 'babe' to Ranger could mean a number of things. It could mean that he was exasperated with me. It could mean that he was frustrated with me. It could be a sign that he was feeling amorous or it could be a hello or a farewell. In this case, it was an expression of commiseration. He knew how rotten I had been feeling. In the past week, I had barely been able to eat anything, no matter the time of day. Two weeks before I'd been able to eat something – small, but had been able to keep it down – after about noon. I liked to tell people that once eleven o'clock came, I was back to normal. That wasn't entirely true, no matter what I told myself and others. After eleven I was able to eat, but it was slow going and I only ate the bare minimum. In fact, when the nurse had weighed me and told me that I had gained a pound, I had been shocked. Based on my consumption and the amount that I was expelling, I would have thought that I would have lost about twenty pounds.

"Would you like me to heat up some chicken broth?" said Ranger as he finished shaving and took a hot cloth and wiped the remaining flecks of soap from his skin. He let the water out of the sink and took some shea aftershave and rubbed the lotion into his face. I loved the smell of his soap and his aftershave, and watching him shave was one of my favorite times of the day. Ranger was a fairly guarded person and hid his emotions from the world at all times. I probably saw his emotions more than anyone else, but even with me he played his cards close to his chest. For Ranger, it was a way of life. However, when Ranger was shaving was the one time – the only time – in the day when he forgot to hide who he was, and watching him was fascinating. I thought that I would never tire of seeing him think through things, of seeing the essence of who he was.

Ranger looked at me in question. I had discovered a fondness for Ella's chicken broth a couple of days before. I didn't know what she put in it to make it taste so good, but it was flavorful and hot. It had been my dinner for the last three nights and Ella, knowing how much I liked it, had made more the day before and put it in our freezer in single serve portions for me to pull out whenever I wanted. "It seems like a weird breakfast", I said. "Chicken broth, ginger ale and pretzels."

"It's nourishment", said Ranger. "The chicken broth would have some protein in it and, since Ella simmers vegetables with the bones, some nutrients as well; the pretzels would have carbs; and, the ginger ale would have sugar to give you some energy. You're taking prenatal vitamins to help supply the other nutrients that you aren't getting through your food. The most important thing right now is for you to consume calories. You can focus on eating proper nutrition when your nausea abates and, to tell you the truth, the things you are choosing to eat are generally pretty healthy."

I scoffed. "Pretzels?"

"They are a snack food, but I don't think of them as a junk food. They aren't fried and are low in fat. Yes, they have a lot of salt and not many nutrients, but you aren't eating them for the nutrient value. You are eating them so that they settle your stomach. For that reason alone, they are worth eating."

I smiled. "I think I love you."

Ranger grinned. "You only think it? I know I love you."

"I had the stray thought the other day that I loved you too, and once I thought it, I couldn't get it out of my head."

"Don't you hate it when you get a thought in your head and it won't leave you alone?" said Ranger. "It's like having a line from a bad song go around and around."

I laughed.


	8. Chapter 8

By the time I left for my parents', my stomach was steadier. I still didn't feel up to eating much but I'd been able to hold down another cup of chicken broth so I considered it a success. At the rate I was going through the chicken broth, Ella would soon have to make more. As I passed her on the way out, she told me that she was planning on making more the next day.

I was tired and would have killed for a nap, and I thought about Ranger's suggestion that I do just that for an hour before I left. As he said, without eating I would be more tired, and that in itself was enough of a reason for me to take a nap. However, my list of people to research was long, and I wanted to get as many done as I could before I left.

There were a few concerns, but nothing jumped out as essentially bad. Of the eight people I'd had time to research, there were two people with sealed juvie records, one person who had a habit of speeding and never paying their speeding tickets, and someone who had a plethora of parking tickets to their name. However, the person who rang some bells with me and who I thought would bear further investigation was the person whose brother owned Abateur, the rival abattoir. Unfortunately, I had to go before I had time to check it out.

I picked up Grandma right on the button, and she was ready to go, her coat and boots on and her purse in her arms, as I pulled into the driveway. She called out a goodbye as she left the house, and hustled down the pathway to the car as if the hounds of Hell were chasing her. She climbed in and I waited for her to do up her seatbelt. She hurriedly snapped it in place and turned to me. "Go", she said. "Go quickly."

"What's going on, Grandma?" I said as I reversed out of the driveway and headed over to the mall.

"Your mother is so unreasonable."

"Why do you say that?"

"I just like to look at nude pictures. There isn't anything wrong with that. So I sent away for some posters of some hot models. They came today. They are full-sized posters and are so clear you can see each of the men's pubic hairs. I figure that, when I can't sleep, I could count them. It would be far more enjoyable than counting sheep."

"That's true. Why was mom annoyed about it? She has always said that your room was your room."

"I might have ordered the pictures online."

"So?"

"I couldn't figure out how to do it, so I asked Angie to help."

"Angie is only twelve. You asked her to help you order pictures of nude men?"

"I told her to keep it a secret. Your mother is a little perturbed, partly because I asked her to keep it a secret and partly because I got Angie to help in the first place."

"I can see why she's perturbed. Why didn't you ask me to help you?"

"You weren't here, and I didn't want to wait. When you get as old as I am, it doesn't make sense to wait. You never know if you'll have another day."

"I see. So mom is unhappy that you ordered pictures of naked men?"

"That's part of it."

"What's the other part?"

"I was a little embarrassed about ordering the pictures on my email account. After all, I don't want to be known as a Horny Hettie. So I ordered them using your mom's name."

"So now someone thinks that my mother looks at naked men?"

"Worse – the people who sent me the naked pictures have your mom's contact information now. In the last twenty-four hours, she's received three invitations of a sexual nature, five requests for her house address, nine requests for photos and two inquiries into whether she has a willing dog. I don't know if the last two qualify however, since the person who submitted those inquiries was the same person and signed his name with the initials V.P., and somehow I don't think Vinnie would be interested in Helen even if she did have a dog." Vinnie had a perverted sex life. It was, in fact, what I blackmailed him with when I originally wanted a job skip tracing a few years back.

"I don't know. He might." My grandmother laughed. "So Mom is being inundated with booty calls?"

"That's not including the number of men who have sent her naked pictures of themselves."

"People really do that?"

"Yes, apparently. Just today alone your mother got twelve different naked selfies. She says that she's afraid to check her email now and that she knew identity theft was a possibility, but she didn't think her own mother would steal her good name."

I laughed. "Grandma, what did you think would happen if you ordered things online? Your name will go into a database and will be accessed time and time again."

"Is there anything I can do to stop your mother from being harassed?"

"Probably not much. Mom will just have to learn to grin and bear it, unfortunately."

"Your mom's being a little unreasonable about things though", said Grandma. "I was thinking that I'd buy myself a new phone for Christmas, but now that I see what sort of emails your mom is getting, I think what would be better would be for me to buy a new phone for your mother for Christmas, and perhaps take over your mother's old phone."

"You just want to receive the naked pictures yourself."

"Well, of course. Your mom isn't letting me see them. She's beside herself, and it really is a silly reason to be beside yourself over. They are just pictures."

"The pictures and offers are going to Mom's email address, and she will pick them up no matter what phone or computer she is on. Buying her a new phone won't do anything about removing the offers that she is getting."

"Really?"

"Yes. I think you are sunk. Unless Mom is willing to switch her email address – and that's a very big thing to ask Mom to do – then Mom is stuck with the naked men."

"You don't have to say it like it is a trial in life. I don't think it would be any great hardship to be sent pictures of naked men. In fact, if it was me, it would brighten my day."

I laughed. "That's you, Grandma. Mom is still married, and she is still going to bed with her husband. She might not be as interested in looking at naked men."

"I've seen your father."

"Naked?"

"No, but I have a very good imagination. If I was your mother, I would be thrilled to see pictures of naked men. It would be important for when they were in bed together. Then your mother could pretend that your father was good looking."

"I don't really want to think about it."

"Neither do I, and if I was your mother I wouldn't want to think about it either. That's why it is so important to have pictures to help you get in the mood."

I parked in the parking lot, in the closest spot that I could find to the mall. I had been lucky and a person was just leaving as I was driving up and down the aisles. The person who had been waiting patiently for the spot before I got there wasn't very happy with me, but since they hadn't put their blinker on I figured the spot was fair game. As I said, Christmas shopping in New Jersey was a sport that was as competitive as college football and twice as vicious.

As I put my car into park and the person who had been waiting for the spot leaned on their horn and made several rude hand gestures, I disengaged my seatbelt and picked up my purse and looked in the rearview mirror and laughed.

"What's so funny, dear?" said Grandma.

"I was just appreciating the woman's expressive sign language when I realized that the person driving the car is Joyce Barnhardt. She has dyed her hair black, so she was a little hard to recognize. I don't think the black suits her coloring, and mixed with the red lips it makes her look like a witch."

"Apparently her looks now match her personality", said Grandma.

I laughed. Joyce was my childhood nemesis, and I agreed that she was an evil witch. She always had been. When she was growing up she more resembled a troll. She had bright orange curls that stuck up everywhere and because she had a habit of getting chewing gum stuck in her hair, her mother kept her hair cut short. She had a massive overbite, was pudgy, wore glasses, and was spotty. She handled her awkwardness by tormenting all the neighborhood kids. She particularly liked it when she made them cry.

However, but the time she was eighteen the spots had cleared up, her curls had turned dark red and grown long, her weight moved from her stomach to her chest, her teeth had been straightened by braces, and the boys had all forgotten that she used to make them cry. Joyce, however, wasn't finished tormenting people and frequently and largely successfully stole boyfriends, a practice that she still continued to this day.

I had first-hand knowledge about Joyce's boyfriend-stealing. When Dickie and I were three-months married, I came home from work early one day to find Joyce boinking my new husband on my new dining room table. On a fit of pique I left. Although I hadn't been unhappy to be leaving Dickie, I had been unhappy to have left the dining room table. It was a nice table that I had been looking forward to serving a meal at. That was the one thing that I let Dickie have without a fight in what was known as the most contentious divorce in Burg history. Of course, it made sense to be known as the most contentious. Our marriage was also the shortest.

When I left Dickie, Joyce showed that she was only interested in someone when they were attached to someone else. I told Joyce, when I saw her in the grocery store a week after I left Dickie, that she could have him. Her reaction was to laugh and tell me that she didn't want him. She had only wanted confirmation that she was better in the sack than I was. The security guards had to pull me off Joyce after she said that.

Since that interaction with her, Joyce and I have had a tumultuous relationship. She still used sex to try to manipulate people and frequently tried to steal both Morelli and Ranger. In an effort to steal my skips, she regularly boinked Vinnie. Since she and Vinnie shared similar perversions, she got along well with him. I, however, just as frequently tried to avoid her and not spend time with her. Now that I was with Ranger, she had doubled up her efforts to get Ranger into her bed, but as Ranger said, he was not interested in settling down with a woman that half of Trenton had bedded. I decided that he was my hero when he said that and, if I hadn't already agreed to marry him at that point, I would have right then.

So was I unhappy that I had stolen Joyce's parking spot? Not at all. She had tried to steal everything else from me. I figured that a parking spot was a small price to pay.


	9. Chapter 9

Grandma and I met Valerie and the three babies at Santa's Village. We stood in line for a long time, so long that Edmund woke up and started to bawl. Which woke up Victoria and Lisa, and suddenly all three babies were screaming. I looked at Val, and she looked ready to cry alongside her kids. "What's wrong?" I said over the din.

Valerie tried to interest her kids in their soothers, but none of the kids were having anything to do with them. "Maybe we should do this another day", said Valerie.

"It's almost our turn", I said. There were only two children in front of us, and they were both babies and would not take much time on Santa's knee. After all, their list wouldn't be too long. They were still learning how to say mama and dada.

"But Steph", said Val. She looked mortified and pointed at her chest. "My milk came in when Edmund cried."

I looked at the double wet spots on her t-shirt. It was a bit of a problem, and I could see why she wanted to have her picture taken another day. But then I looked at the long line behind us and thought about the time we'd just spent waiting our turn, and I knew we couldn't give up our turn in line.

I pulled my leopard silk scarf off my neck and threw it over Valerie's neck. I arranged it so that the ends of the scarf nicely covered the wet spots. "All fixed", I said.

We moved forward another couple of people until we were next in line to see the big man. I looked around me. A black man was approaching Santa's Village. He was dressed in a Santa suit and he was carrying a sign. A few seconds later there were a number of black men, all wearing Santa suits, all carrying big signs. They cut the line off from the Santa on the chair, and signs were waved angrily. "No more elves", chanted one man. The chant was picked up by the other Santas.

A large black Santa climbed over the barricade and stood up near Santa's throne. The mother of the person who was on his knee scrambled up to the front to retrieve her child, and as I strode forward to take my turn on Santa's knee, one of the black Santas blocked my path.

"You don't want to go there, ma'am", he said. "You don't want to be anywhere near this."

"You don't understand", I said. "My sister is leaking, and if we are going to get this picture we need to do it _now_."

The man beside Santa's chair pulled a megaphone out of a bag. I wondered if it was a magical bag that he would be able to pull out whatever he needed. He put the megaphone to his mouth and started to yell in it. "This is discrimination. Santas can be any color. There is no law that says that Santas have to be white. This mall has been discriminating against blacks, and we are here to stop it. We are saying 'no!' We don't want to be elves. We are saying 'no!' We don't agree with Santas being paid more than elves. We are saying 'hell, no!' We don't want to be restricted to being elves because of the color of our skin. Would you support a company that preferred white people? A company that would only hire white people into its top spot? I say, 'hell, no'."

"Do they hire women to be Santas as well?" I asked the man standing at the entrance to Santa's Village.

"Of course not", said the man. "That would be silly having a female Santa."

"Why?" I said.

"It just would. Santas are supposed to be male."

"So Santas don't have to fit the aesthetic but they have to fit the stereotype?"

"Yes."

"Hell, no!" said my grandmother. She deked around the person who was holding us back and strode up to the black Santa. She snatched the megaphone out of his hand. "I say hell, no!" she said. She looked a little shocked at how loud her voice was, before she looked at me and smiled. "Hell, no! There should be Santas of any color. Hell, no! There should be female Santas. Hell, no! There should be children Santas. We should end tyranny and preference. We should open the job as a Santa to the person who is the most qualified. We should have Santas of all ages and colors and genders."

"Hell, no", said the black Santa at the front. "You can't have female Santas. Female Santas have padding in all the wrong places."

"That can be tamped down", said Grandma.

"Females have voices that are too high to be a Santa."

"A woman can modify their voice, and for your information, I am quite able to yell 'ho, ho, ho' in a loud voice." She lowered her voice and chortled to illustrate her point.

"It is just wrong to think of a female being a Santa."

"Hell, no!"

Mall security came, and the black Santas all scattered. Grandma was left holding the megaphone near Santa's throne.

"Great", said Valerie. "Can we have our picture done now?" She pushed her triple-stroller to the side of the stage as the mall security guard approached us.

"You can't be making a ruckus, ma'am", said the guard. "Parents want to bring their children to see Santa. This is supposed to be a good childhood memory."

"The mall is practicing tyranny!" yelled my grandmother.

"Oh, boy", said Valerie. "Can we just have our picture taken? I've been waiting for almost forty-five minutes."

"Boycott this Santa Village", yelled my grandmother.

"Ma'am, you have to come with us", said the security guard to my grandmother. He moved to grab hold of her elbow and she jumped out of the way. As she jumped, she knocked over the bin of candy canes. They spilled all across the floor in front of Santa's throne and she jumped to the side of Santa.

"You have been a very naughty girl", said Santa to my grandmother.

"How can you support this?" she said to Santa.

"I just collect my paycheck", said Santa. "Besides, it's fun telling women that they are naughty. Usually I have to pay for that."

The mall cop strode up to Grandma, his cuffs out, and Grandma broke a polystyrene candy cane off the display and brandished it around like a sword. Wielding it like she was the fourth Musketeer, she pranced around on her tippy-toes and, every time the mall cop got close, Grandma whipped him on his forearm with the candy cane.

The mall cop mumbled something into his walkie-talkie, and I decided that it had gone on long enough. Valerie looked like she was about to cry, Grandma looked gleeful, Santa had turned and watched Grandma with an enraptured look on his face, and I still wanted my photograph.

"I'll tell you what", I said. "Let us get this photograph, and I'll take Grandma shopping and get her out of your hair for the afternoon." I walked up to Grandma and took the polystyrene candy cane out of her hands and led her from the dais. I could feel the candy canes crunch under my boots as I brought her to the side to look after the babies.

"I want to arrest this woman", said the mall cop.

"Let's get this photograph, and then we can talk about it", I said. I grabbed Valerie's hand and walked up to the Santa. I sat Valerie on one knee, and I sat on the other. "I'm sorry we made a mess of your village", I said. "My grandmother is a leftover hippy who doesn't believe in tyranny."

"Your grandmother is wonderful", said Santa with a smile and a sigh. "Is she single?"

"Yes, she is. I'll tell you what. After you get a picture with Val and me, I'll ask my grandmother to sit on your knee for a minute and you can ask her out."

Santa grinned. "She could be my Mrs. Claus any day."

I smiled.

"What would you like for Christmas, young ladies?" said Santa.

"I'd like to have a bubble bath without anyone in the family fighting for the bathroom", said Val.

"What do you want for Christmas?" Santa said to me.

I thought for a moment. "I don't know", I said. "I like my life pretty much the way that it is." I paused. "I just want this picture with my sister. When we were children, my mother had us do a picture every year at Christmas. This year, we decided to do another picture for her, just her two girls."

"That's real nice", said Santa.

"Smile", said a perky little elf. I noticed that she was black and wondered if the Santa brigade had been onto something.

The flash went off and Valerie and I scrambled off Santa's knee. "Thank you for being so understanding", I said to Santa.

Valerie hustled to her children, who were becoming hysterical. Their cries were setting off other children in the line. "Grandma", I said, "it's your turn next."

The person next in line groaned, and her son pulled on her hand. "Mommy, why is the bad woman sitting on Santa's knee?"

"It's so that Santa can tell her that she'll get a lump of coal if she doesn't start acting better", said the mother.

Another two security guards came down to Santa's Village, and my grandmother hopped up on Santa's knee. She talked quietly to him for a minute. I could hear Santa ask my grandmother to leave her number with the photographer, and as she stood up he pinched her ass. She turned red, but she was smiling.

As I grabbed the photos from the photographer and paid for the prints, the security guards captured Grandma and led her from the Village. The other mothers started to clap.

Valerie and I followed the security guards and Grandma. "I demand to see your supervisor", said my grandmother. I groaned.

"He is already on his way, ma'am", said the first security guard. He continued to walk Grandma to the security office. Valerie followed with her wailing three children, and I followed behind as I tried frantically to figure a way out of the situation that wouldn't get Grandma charged with public mischief.

We got to the security office, and I turned to the guards. "My sister really needs to feed her son. Do you mind if she breastfeeds him here? I know from experience that his crying will only become more frantic if he isn't fed."

One of the guards indicated which chair Valerie should sit in, and she sat with a grateful sigh. I handed her Edmund and she lifted her top, undid her bra, and his crying was mercifully silenced.

Grandma and I each took another child out of the stroller and bounced them around in our arms. They quickly stopped crying, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief as silence reigned. "There are teething biscuits in the diaper bag", said Valerie.

Grandma put Lisa on her feet and rummaged through the bag until she finally pulled out a small sandwich baggie filled with teething biscuits. I handed one to Victoria and Grandma handed one to Lisa. Both girls grinned, and their smiles only got wider when we handed them the sippy cups of juice that Valerie also had the foresight to bring.

The security guard supervisor walked into the room, and the other security guards stood a little straighter. The newcomer turned to us. "Steph?" he said with surprise in his voice.

"Hey, Tony", I said. Tony Testler was a skip that I had taken in several times. He had wanted to become a police officer, and he thought the most expedient route to getting there was to impersonate a cop and collect money for speeding tickets. The money that he raised he donated to the Police Association. He felt that he would impress the police with the good job that he was doing, and he thought he'd get noticed for something good by donating as much money as he was. It hadn't worked in his favor though. I had taken him in about six times in the last few years. He was a nice man who just didn't understand that his actions were increasing the chance that his application would be denied. The last time I had taken him in was about six months before, and I'd had a long talk with him about the choices that he was making in his life. At the time, I encouraged him to be the best security guard that he could be. I hadn't seen him since, so it was nice to have a bit of a chance to get caught up. "How are you doing?"

"Good. I've been made supervisor."

"Hey, that's great! I'm really happy for you. I'm sure that you make an excellent supervisor. You have the personality for it."

"Are you still a bounty hunter? Are these skips of yours?"

"No, those are my sister and my grandmother. I'm still a bounty hunter but I've been so busy with my second job as a researcher that I haven't had time to chase skips. I've been handing off all my skip tracing jobs to Rangeman, a security company."

"I tried to get on with them a few months ago, but I didn't hear back when I put in a resume."

"Don't take it personally. They generally only hire former military personnel for their Operations staff. They will soon be hiring more security guards, however, and are opening their hiring practices up to hiring non-military as well. If you tried again, you'd stand a chance."

"Thanks. I will. They pay better than the mall. What are you doing here?"

I explained what had happened.

"I didn't see any other Santas", said the first security guard.

"You could check your security tapes", I said. "There were about fifteen Santas there protesting."

The first security guard went to the bank of monitors and pulled up the view of Santa's Village. "Don't you believe us?" said my grandmother. She started to get incensed.

I sighed. "Grandma, we want them to check the security tape footage. Without it, they will be looking for the wrong person, and they don't want that to happen – and neither do we."

"Steph", said Tony, "we don't have audio on these cameras. Can you tell us what was being said?"

I told him what the ringleader said and how I threw a monkey wrench into their plans when I asked them whether women were allowed to apply. I told him that my grandmother pointed out that the mall wasn't only practicing racial discrimination, but was also practicing gender discrimination as well as age discrimination. And I told them that the security guard told my grandmother that she was going to be arrested and she got scared. For once, my grandmother didn't interrupt and she let me do the talking and appeared as though she wasn't listening at all as she played with Lisa, although Val looked like she was having trouble not laughing to think that Grandma was scared. "I think she was just trying to point out to the black Santas the weakness in their argument. The black Santas were just as discriminatory and didn't think that women or teens should be given the jobs as Santa either. She was trying to help you avoid a lawsuit. You should be thanking her."

"Amen", said my grandmother. Apparently she had been listening after all.

"I don't know", said Val. "I don't think my kids would enjoy going to a black Santa, or a female Santa, or a teenaged Santa."

"That's the whole point", I said. "A female Santa or a black Santa or a teenaged Santa doesn't look like Santa, no matter what they do. No one wants to go to a Santa like that, and Grandma was just pointing it out in her own way. The way she chose might not have been the best way to make her point, but she made her point even so."

"Should I phone the police, Tony, and have them arrested for disturbing the peace?" said the first security guard. I decided that I didn't like that security guard. He was too intent upon criminal charges, and he wasn't listening to what we were saying. "After all", he continued, "they destroyed the Village display and crushed a container full of candy canes."

"That was an accident", I said. "If you look at the security feed, you can see that you scared my grandmother and she was trying to get out of your way. When doing so, she backed into the container of candy canes and knocked them over. It was, as I said, an accident."

Tony smiled. "I don't think the mall needs the media attention that charging Stephanie and her grandmother and her sister, the mother to three little babies, would bring. Stephanie is well-known in the police world, and we wouldn't get much sympathy if we tried to charge her. I think we should let them go with the request not to come back to Santa's Village this year." Tony turned to us. "Would that be something you could live with?"

"So we can still do our shopping here today?" I asked, just to make sure. I couldn't believe that we were getting off so lightly.

Tony smiled. "The stores in the mall wouldn't want it any other way."

"But Tony…" said the first security guard.

A look of annoyance washed over Tony's face. "Brian", he said, "here's the deal. You have captured someone who is well-known and well-liked amongst the police, and the police wouldn't thank you for the need to take her in. In fact, I think there would be some backlash if you tried to have her charged. Add in the fact that you scared an old woman to the point where she knocked over a large drum of candy canes all in an effort to get away from you, and the other person you captured was a young mother of three babies who was simply waiting for a chance to sit on Santa's knee – charging them seems more like a media nightmare than anything else. Did Santa in any way feel threatened?"

"I hope not", said my grandmother. "He's supposed to be calling me to set up a dinner date."

"So Santa wasn't threatened by the women but the women felt threatened by your treatment of them. As I said, it's a public relations nightmare. Let it die a slow death. We aren't charging Stephanie or her grandmother or her sister, and we hope that, by this show of good faith, that they also won't charge us for scaring them."

"I think, Tony, that I can speak for my grandmother and my sister as well when I say that I'd like to put this whole experience behind us and move on."

Edmund popped off Valerie and she put him up on her shoulder and burped him. A bubble of milk came out and dribbled down my scarf. "I'm sorry", said Valerie. "I'll wash it before I give it back to you."

"Keep it", I said.

I shook Tony's hand and wished him well, then looked at the other security guards in the room and wished them a merry Christmas. As Val and Grandma and the kids and I walked out of the security office, Grandma said, "do you know what was the most disappointing part about this whole visit to Santa?"

"What's that, Grandma?" I said.

"No candy canes. Everyone knows that the best part of visiting Santa are the candy canes. Do you think anyone would mind if we snuck back and got some?"

"NO!" Val and I said at the same time. "We are NOT sneaking back and getting candy canes."

"We crushed all the candy canes that were there, anyway", I said. "Besides, when you go on the date with Santa you can always ask him to bring you a few."

Grandma brightened. "There is that", she said. "I could be his elf."

"Edna the elf?"

"Kind of has a nice ring to it, don't you think?" asked Grandma. "Do you think I need to buy a pair of shoes that curl up at the toes?"


	10. Chapter 10

I got back to the apartment in time for a nap, and I thankfully sank into the bed and closed my eyes. I was exhausted and knew that, if I wanted to do some work that evening – or even just to stay awake through dinner – a nap would be required.

Shortly after I lay down, Ranger walked into the apartment. He was on the phone with Cal, and I could hear him talk to Cal about one of the employees in particular. He told him to get cozy with the man, and hung up the phone as he walked through the bedroom to the office. "I'm sorry I woke you, babe", he said.

"It's okay. I wasn't asleep yet. It sounds like you need me to do more in-depth investigation on Barry Zeiberman."

"Is he yours or Miguel's?"

"Mine. I started researching him before I left for the mall and wanted to look into him further, but I thought I would do that this evening."

"Did you find something that said that he deserved looking into further?"

"I did. Barry is the brother of a rival abattoir. The same rival, in fact, that threatened Elena. It seemed like too much of a coincidence to me."

"What is he in charge of at Nature-Fresh?"

"I don't know. I literally just found out about the rival company connection right before I left for my grandmother's, and I just got back from Christmas shopping. I thought I'd take a power nap and then attack the research again this evening."

"I think that's a good idea. At the risk of asking you to do too much, if you could investigate Barry tonight I'd appreciate it. Take time off tomorrow to sleep in instead. I don't want you working more than forty hours in a week, but you're our best researcher. Miguel is good as well, but you are better. I'd like you doing this research if you can." I hauled myself out of bed.

"No, babe", said Ranger as he gathered me into a hug. "Sleep first, then dinner and then, when you are better rested and have more energy, you can focus on your research. As long as it is done by the end of the night, we'll be good. Cal won't look at it until breakfast tomorrow anyway, and neither will Raphael. I'm not passing over the information to my family until I have a better idea as to what is happening." I buried my nose in his shoulder and sniffed his comforting scent, and Ranger rubbed my back slowly and firmly.

"How did it go with your family today?" I asked.

"Mike and I were able to come up with a great system design. Mike will put the schematics down on paper tomorrow. The day after tomorrow, we will be touring Nature-Fresh and will come up with a security plan for that company as well. Following that, we will be touring the rest of the suppliers and devising their security plans. The contamination has been restricted to just the meat currently, but I would hate to see another supplier's food be contaminated as well."

"That's true. It would be horrible if there were two sources of contamination."

"That's true."

"So what made Cal ask about Barry?"

"He said that staff generally hates the owners, but Barry seemed to be particularly vicious when he talked about the company. Cal asked him why he just didn't leave, but Barry didn't have an answer to that. Cal suspects Barry has something to do with the poisoning, but he suspects that it isn't contained with just Barry. His gut says more people are involved."

"If the staff hates their employer, is Manoso's being targeted because of their association with the company?"

"It's a possibility." He guided me to the bed and lay down beside me.

"You want to take a nap?" I was shocked. Ranger never napped.

"No, I want you to take a nap. I'll lie with you until you fall asleep. I'll wake you in time for dinner."

"What about the research?"

"It can wait a couple of hours. It's not going anywhere."

I smiled and kissed his pecs, and let my hands drift south to below his belt.

"No, babe", he said. I could see that he was thinking about smiling as he captured my hands and interlaced his fingers with mine. "I stand by what I said last night. I want you with me the next time we make love. It will come."

"That's not the only thing that will be coming", I said.

Ranger smiled. "That will be good, too. Don't worry. We won't be avoiding sex for forever."

"Thank God", I said.

Ranger pulled me into his body and I breathed deeply. His comforting scent made my body relax, and ten minutes later I was asleep.

Two hours later, Ranger woke me with a kiss. "I never asked you. How did your shopping go with your grandmother?"

I laughed as I sat up and brushed my hair out of my eyes. "Do I have a story for you!"

Ranger thought about smiling. "Since your grandmother was involved, I'm sure it's a doozy."

I laughed, and as I got out of bed and used the facilities, I told Ranger what my grandmother had done.

"That may explain the calls that you've been getting from your mother."

"My mom has been calling?"

"I didn't answer, but your mom has called something like six times in the last half hour. I actually would have let you sleep a little longer, but I was afraid that your mother was calling for something important."

I groaned, went into the den and picked up my phone, and counted the messages. Ranger was right. My mom had left six. I sighed and called her back. "What's up, Mom?" I asked.

"What happened when you were out shopping today?" she said.

"We bought Christmas presents. Why?"

"If that is all you did, then why am I watching you on the local news?"

"We're on the news?"

"Yes. The headline is 'psycho granny goes ballistic in Santa's Village'."

"Oh, boy."

"Why didn't you stop her?"

"Have you ever tried to stop Grandma when she's on a roll?"

There was a silence. "That's true", said my mother. "The news report says that she single-handedly demolished the Santa display."

"They are exaggerating. She broke off one little candy cane and used it to bat away the security guard when he tried to arrest her. She also scooted out of the guard's way and, in her haste to get away from him, she tipped over the candy canes. None of this would have happened if the security guard hadn't scared her."

"Your grandmother? Scared?" My mother started to laugh a little hysterically. "Your grandmother isn't scared of anything."

"Honestly", I said, "the security guard wasn't very good with people. He was more interested in making a name for himself than he was with solving the problem. Hopefully this blows over fast and doesn't get out of hand."

"I think it is already out of hand", said my mother. "I've had seven people call me after seeing the news reports, three reporters call me wanting an exclusive on why your grandmother did what she did, and someone who wants to make a song out of the saying, "hell, no. We won't wear bells; we won't be elves."

"Grandma didn't even say that", I said. "I mean, she said, 'hell, no', but she didn't say the rest."

"The video they are showing of your grandmother doesn't have audio, so the newscasters are largely making up whatever they want to go with the video. Whatever were you doing at Santa's display, anyway?"

"Valerie wanted to take the little ones", I said. I crossed my fingers. I didn't like lying to my mother, but I couldn't very well tell her that we were getting her Christmas present. She would figure out what it was then. "Besides, Grandma wanted a candy cane."

"So that's why you gave her a box of them?"

"I bought them on the way through one of the checkout lines. I thought it would stop her from going back to the Village. The way we left it with the security supervisor was that we would agree to stay away from Santa's Village for the rest of the season and they would agree not to charge us for public mischief. Val and I were all for not going back, but Grandma said that Val and I were the ones that agreed with Tony and she did not, so therefore she felt that she shouldn't have to honor the agreement."

"Santa has already called to set up a date with your grandmother."

"You know what the good news in all this is, don't you?"

"What's that?"

"She's been too busy getting into mischief to send away for more nude pictures."

"That's true", said my mother.

"The other bit of good news is that everyone knows that my grandmother is the person in the video. There won't be anyone who is blaming you for it." I looked up, and Ranger was giving me a 'thumbs up' sign. You could tell that he was thinking about smiling, and I grinned at him.

"You know", said my mother, "you always remind me of the story about the optimist and the pessimist."

"What story is that?"

"There were two kids – an optimist and a pessimist, but they were so radically either an optimist or a pessimist that their parents thought they weren't very realistic. So one Christmas, they decided to teach their kids a lesson. They bought a room full of toys and games for the pessimist, and a pile of horse manure for the optimist. It came to Christmas morning, and the parents led the kids to their respective presents. The pessimist waded through his presents, looking at things and throwing them away. After he had opened all his gifts, his parents asked him what he thought of his presents. The son grumbled and complained and told them that they had bought the wrong color of clothing and the wrong action figure of the collectibles and the wrong version of the board games and the computer games. He said he hadn't wanted anything they had given him and he didn't understand why Christmas had to be such a horrible time of the year. The parents were a little disheartened, so they went outside to the pile of manure. Their optimistic child was digging down in the pile with a big shovel, and he had a grin from ear to ear. They asked him what he thought of his Christmas present. He told them it was great. The parents looked at each other in shock and asked him why it was great. The optimist replied, 'with all this manure there has to be a horse in there somewhere!'" I laughed. "You, Steph, can always find the horse."


	11. Chapter 11

I ate a good dinner of chicken broth and soda crackers, but Ranger made me a banana smoothie and that was excellent. I even kept it down, and I thought I might have discovered a new favorite. Ranger had a million reasons why it wasn't happy food. Something to do with the amount of calcium and potassium and a number of other nutrients. I figured he could think what he liked, but in my books it was happy food and it was more happy food than I had been able to eat in a month. I could feel my spirits rise just by its consumption, and Ranger smiled when I asked him whether he could make me another the next day. I think he was happy to be able to do something. Ranger was and would always be a 'doer', a 'solver'. When there was a problem, he would find a solution and would do it. He wasn't someone who would sit by the wayside and bemoan the situation. To have to watch me feel sick and to know that there was nothing he could do to help the situation had to be hard for him. I understood that, and I tried to tell him when he was doing something particularly helpful. So when I told him how much I liked the smoothie he made me, I could tell that he was relieved to have been able to help.

By the time I had consumed my smoothie, I was feeling much more energetic than I had in weeks, and Ranger smiled when I told him that. "You've hardly eaten anything in weeks", he said. "If you don't put gas in a car, the car can't run. Likewise, you aren't going to feel energetic on the little that you've been able to keep down. You may have largely eaten a liquid dinner this evening, but that's the most calories you have eaten in a meal – and maybe even in a whole day – in about a month. I really see the light at the end of the tunnel. I know you still feel crappy, and I get that you're still nauseous and having trouble seeing the improvement, but I can see improvements every day now. They are gradual and they are little steps, but they are definite steps."

"I worry that the baby isn't getting the proper nutrients to grow."

"The baby is like a little tapeworm. It will get the proper nutrients to grow and, if you aren't consuming enough of them, the baby will bleed them from your body and you will be at a deficit. The baby, however, will always take what it needs to survive. That's why it's so important to drink enough milk. Without it, the baby would drain your body of calcium and your bones would be left weakened."

"Luckily then, that is one of the few things I can keep down."

"And I'm glad to see that you are drinking about three glasses of it per day."

I put my smoothie glass in the dishwasher and gave Ranger a kiss. He smoothed his hands down my back and pulled me into his body. I kissed the hollow of his throat, shut my eyes, and just breathed. Calm settled over me, a feeling of peace, and I kissed him again. Ranger kissed me on the top of my head, and then pulled back and led me into the den. I retrieved my laptop, stretched my legs out on the sofa with my computer on my lap, and got to work. Five hours later, I had completed my analysis.

"What's the verdict?" said Ranger.

"He's the brother of the rival abattoir, as I had said previously, so I first investigated the other company. The rival abattoir is in financial difficulty. It looks like Nature-Fresh had stolen a few contracts from them in the past, contracts that they had been relying upon. If they could steal the Manoso's contract, they would be operating in the black again. Manoso's is a lucrative contract. Although they are a smaller restaurant rather than a chain, they pay well for organic food.

"I looked into Nature-Fresh as well – it was helpful that Elena got us a copy of their books – and I think you need to get an auditor in. From what I can see, they tell Manoso's that they are offering them a special rate – and they do. But their special rate is one that is greater than what other companies are paying Nature-Fresh for their meats. Nature-Fresh advertises that their meat is organic and Manoso's is paying for organic meats, but I have looked into some of the Nature-Fresh farmers and they don't advertise an organic offering. I have sent out emails to those farmers asking for confirmation that their meat is organic. In short, I'm not certain that Manoso's is getting the organic meat they are paying for.

"Barry himself is in financial trouble. He owns a third of the rival abattoir and has been supplementing the abattoir's business with his personal income. He has now worked through all his retirement savings. If the company goes bankrupt, he will have no money for his future. Interestingly, his brother that owns the other two-thirds of the company isn't facing the same financial ruin. He hasn't been supplementing the company the same way.

"Barry is single, had owned his own house and car but has since mortgaged them to the hilt. His car in particular appears to have a lien on it beyond what it is worth.

"He has some good friends and an active social life, and two of his friends work at Nature-Fresh. One is the bookkeeper while the other is another butcher. The bookkeeper that Nature-Fresh employs works for other companies as well, and some of them are for other food suppliers. I would be interested to see if those other food suppliers have contracts to provide food to Manoso's as well. I know it is too late to call Elena now, but perhaps in the morning we could find out the names of the other suppliers so that I could research them."

"I'll send her a text, and she can get back to us as soon as she can."

"To all intents and purposes, Barry looks like our guy. But I think the bookkeeper bears looking at as well, and I'll look into his life tomorrow. I think Cal should continue to work his angle. If Barry sees Cal as not being threatening, perhaps Cal would learn more from him as to what is going on. I also strongly suggest having an accountant audit their books. My instinct says there is something going on there, and I just don't have enough accounting knowledge to accurately suss it out. Nowhere in my research has it been identified as to how the meat is becoming contaminated or what it is being contaminated with."

"We can find out the particular pathogen that is being used and potential sources of contamination from the public health inspectors. It does look life food tampering, however", said Ranger. "I'll work with the police in Newark tomorrow to let them know what is going on. At this point, the health inspectors are involved but the police are not."

"That sounds like a good idea. Just judging by what I found out, there is definite criminal activity." I yawned and stretched, and put my computer on the coffee table. "I have sent the report to you, but I thought that perhaps the report should come from you when it goes to Cal and Raphael."

"Thanks. I'll look it over while you get ready for bed, and send it to them now."

"I'm just going to have something to eat before I go to sleep. I'm a little hungry."

Ranger opened the email with the report that I had sent. "Do you want me to make something, babe?"

"Thanks, but I think I'll just have some strawberries. I saw that Ella left some in the fridge for us. Do you want any?"

Ranger smiled. "No, thanks. I'll leave them for you."

I got off the sofa and walked over to him. Ranger was already reviewing my report, and I kissed his cheek gently so as to not disturb his concentration. He looked at me with a soft expression on his face. "Enjoy your strawberries", he said.

I smiled at him and padded into the kitchen, washed the berries and proceeded to eat them. As I finished my snack and realized that I had eaten the whole pint, I was glad that Ranger hadn't wanted any. I wouldn't have wanted to share.


	12. Chapter 12

I barely woke up the next morning as Ranger got out of bed. It was still dark out and was far too early to be up, in my opinion. It seemed unnatural. Of course, with it being close to the longest night of the year, it was dark when I got up as well. Personally, I thought I would have been a good bear. I had the hibernation thing down pat.

Ranger kissed me awake at nine, and as I sat up I pushed my hair out of my face. My stomach lurched, but Ranger had brought the bag of pretzels with him when he woke me up, and I leaned back against the headboard as I munched on a few. By some miracle, they stayed down. "Hey", he said softly as he kissed me on my nose. "How are you feeling?"

"Just dandy", I said as I made a face. Ranger thought about smiling. "I had a dream last night about us getting married."

"Was it a good dream?"

"It was. I had a vision of what I wanted your parents' restaurant to look like. There were lots of flowers and candles. Small string lights were wrapped around the beams in the dining area, and we were standing near the fireplace having the priest bless our rings so that we could exchange them. Julie held my flowers for me while we exchanged the rings. It was a very odd dream. A good dream, but an odd dream."

"Why was that odd?"

"First, I didn't want to carry flowers. It seems like too formal a practice for the informality of our ceremony. Second, you don't want a ring."

"Yes, but I've been reconsidering that. It would be odd, I think, to not have a ring for the priest to bless. Although I wouldn't wear it, I thought that I would like to have a blessed ring from you to place in my desk drawer as a good luck talisman. It wouldn't be fancy – just a plain band, but would be something that we could inscribe. I was thinking that we could each inscribe the other's ring with something – not our name, but something personal – that would be a surprise for the other person to read after the ceremony."

I smiled. "That sounds good. I know that the people supporting us will all be sitting down at the wedding, but do you think Julie might mind standing up at the front with us?"

"You want Julie included?"

"She'll be a valuable part of our immediate family. For her, I'd even carry flowers so that I could hand them off to her. I want her to feel like a member of our family and including her in our union is important to me."

"We can ask her if she'd mind when she comes for our Christmas party in another couple of weeks. I have a surprise for you that I just received confirmation on." I grinned, and Ranger laughed. He knew how much I loved surprises. "I was talking to the contractor, and he has the next two weeks available to work on our apartment. The new rooms should be in by Christmas, which means that Julie will be sleeping in her own room when she comes."

I smiled. "That will be a lot nicer for her. When she stayed here the last time she was sleeping in the living room."

"Ron and Rachel will have their own room as well when they come for the wedding. The contractor thought that he'd be able to change the office to the baby's room at the same time, so all the work will be done by the time Christmas comes."

"That was an excellent surprise. So do you have to pick paint colors and furniture?"

"I was thinking that we could perhaps buy furniture for Julie on the weekend so that there will be furniture for her over Christmas. When Ron and Rachel come in February, we'll have moved the office/den into the other side of the apartment and they'll be able to sleep on the pullout sofa. As for colors, I was hoping you'd pick something. I was thinking a relatively neutral color but something that Julie would still like, something that would go with the blanket you bought her."

"I asked her what her favorite colors were, if she had to choose a room, and she said cream with accents of blush and eggplant. That's why her throw blanket is pale blush in color. I thought we could also get her a duvet cover in an eggplant shade."

"I'm not even sure what colors eggplant and blush are." I smiled. "What? Can you blame me? I'm a guy. To me, there are only nine colors: white, black, blue, green, yellow, brown, red, purple and orange."

"What about pink?"

"You mean pale red?"

"Beige?"

"Pale brown. Likewise, I have no idea what color is puce, nor do I care. I mean, really, what the hell is that?"

"I don't know what color puce is either. Arctic to me is a place and peacock is a bird, not shades of blue. But I know that eggplant is a very dark purple and pale blush is a pale pink...sorry, light red."

Ranger smiled. "I know army green and desert brown. Are you sure she doesn't want her room done in camouflage? I could really help with that."

I laughed. "She's a girl, not a soldier."

"Too bad. I know how to deal with soldiers." He paused. "Heaven help me if we have a girl."

"You'll be a great father, girl or not."

"I worry sometimes. I wasn't such a good father to Julie."

"It didn't help that she lived in a different state."

"I could have moved to Florida."

"Your family all lived in New Jersey."

"I didn't try hard enough."

"You were there. She always knew that. You may not have been with her physically, but she always knew that, if she needed you, you would be there."

"I hope so. She's a good kid and, although I don't know her well, I do love her and try to do right by her."

"I know that and, more importantly, she knows that as well." I moved until I was sitting on his lap, and I kissed his pecs as I snuggled in. "Our child, whether it is a boy or a girl, will be the luckiest child around, simply because he or she will have you as a father. They wouldn't be able to find someone else who cared as much as you do, or is as protective as much as you are. My mom always said the two most important jobs to have as a parent are to love your child and keep them safe. You did that with Julie and, because of proximity, you'll be able to do that even more with our child. You are good at listening to people and making them feel like the most important people in the world. You are good at being there for people, and you're good at teaching people. You'll be a great father. I can see you with a whole slew of kids."

His lips quirked up in a smile. "Heaven help me."

"Can't you see yourself with a lot of children?"

"Let me survive this one first."

I laughed.

"Did you want a whole slew of children?" asked Ranger.

"Not particularly, but I did want more than one. I think being an only child would be very lonely. Besides, I'm thirty-two. I don't have too many more baby-making years left in front of me anyway."

"Your clock is ticking?"

"Until now, I didn't even know I had a clock."

"Babe."

Ranger smoothed my curls away from my face and I closed my eyes as a particularly violent wave of nausea washed over me. Suddenly, I scrambled off Ranger's lap and, with my hands clapped over my mouth, I ran for the toilet and lost the pretzels that I had eaten.

Ranger rubbed my back as I finished and, as I crouched there a few seconds longer to see if I was indeed done, Ranger wet a washcloth with warm water and tenderly washed my face. I blew my nose on a square of toilet tissue, dropped in in the toilet and flushed, and Ranger helped me to my feet. "Feel better?" he said.

I nodded. "I'll be happy when this part of my pregnancy is over."

Ranger thought about smiling. "So will I, babe."

I brushed my teeth as Ranger watched and, as I stripped off my sleepwear, Ranger's eyes dilated to black in arousal. "Are you sure I can't take care of your needs?" I said. "Just because I'm off limits doesn't mean that you should be."

"Together, babe. Remember? The next time I get off, I want to be together. Not you getting me off and me not able to pleasure you in return."

"But I could at least give you a blow job."

"Babe", said Ranger on a sigh, "the next time I am with you I want to be balls-deep inside your sexy body. I want to pleasure you until you scream, and then pleasure you some more. And when you are begging me and telling me that you can't take any more pleasure, I want to prove to you that you can. You are made for loving, babe, but it is something I want to do together. Do you understand?

I looked at him and nodded dumbly, my mouth dry as I envisioned it. Ranger's touch was magical, and I knew from experience that he would have me begging and unsure whether I was begging for him to stop or for him to continue. I shifted uncomfortably.

Ranger's lips quirked up. He snaked his arms around my back and kissed me softly on the corner of my mouth, my nose, my cheekbones, and down my tendon to my shoulder. He licked me down the slope to my breast and sucked one in his mouth. My breasts were so sensitive, however, and his words beforehand so inflammatory that I arched into his mouth and imploded. It was a good thing that Ranger was holding me up, because without him I would have collapsed onto the floor in a boneless puddle of goo.

Ranger stepped back as I regained my land legs. I was still breathing hard and shaking, but I was no longer in danger of falling over. Ranger kissed me again. "That was a sample of what is to come." He turned me around and gave me a gentle push towards the shower. "Go, get ready for the day. I have to get to work."

I turned back to him, where he was standing a little awkwardly, and gave him a quick kiss. "Thank you", I said.

"Trust me, the pleasure was all mine. See you at lunch?"


	13. Chapter 13

I looked into the names of the rest of the Abateur staff members on our list, but they seemed clean. While I had one potential that I looked in a bit further – Barry's former boyfriend – I thought that Barry was the person we should be looking at, and I sent that message to Ranger. He responded that he would be up soon for lunch, and I looked in surprise at the time. The morning had flown by. I had eaten my scone that Ella had left for me with Ranger's breakfast, but my stomach was steady enough that I thought I'd be able to hold down a bit of food at lunch. I might not be able to eat much, but the key was that I thought I could hold it down. Ranger sent me a text a few seconds later. "Is there anything you feel like eating?"

I thought about it for a second. "Another banana milkshake?" The more I thought about it, the more I wanted it, so I was glad when Ranger sent a text a couple of minutes later saying that he'd bring up the ingredients from the break room so that he could make me one.

I stood and stretched, and walked through to the kitchen. With Ranger coming for lunch, I put a fresh pot of coffee on for him. I thought he'd like to have a cup after eating his meal. Over the past few months, since I had started working at Rangeman on a permanent basis, we had developed the habit of eating together and, when our lunches were finished, lingering over a hot drink and talking about our days until our lunch break was over. For me, this was a nice break from sitting behind a desk and staring at a computer screen. I had found that I worked best if I focused hard for fifty minutes and then had a ten-minute break. I could do that three or four times before I needed at least an hour break. I could push myself to work longer, but my focus wouldn't be there and my work wouldn't be as good. I generally worked from nine to twelve, took an hour break with Ranger, and then worked from one to five. Typically, Ranger and I would work out for an hour from five to six, before returning to the apartment and having a shower. Dinner was at six-thirty. Ranger and I often worked from about seven or seven-thirty to ten again. Both of us were going through a period of busyness that didn't seem to be abating and it didn't matter how efficient we were in doing our work, there was such a quantity of work to do that we were perpetually behind. Both of us regularly worked sixty-hour weeks, more if we included the time we spent training each week. I was allotted ten hours a week to account for the time I spent in the gym and the gun range. Ranger personally spent about fifteen hours training, with another ten hours training me. I felt bad about Ranger's need to teach me as much as he did, but he said that he considered any time he was able to get all hot and sweaty grappling me to be recreation of the best kind, and that he looked forward to it and that it was a good part of his day. I told him that shooting on the gun range wasn't getting all hot and sweaty with him. After all, he wasn't teaching me self-defense. He was just observing and giving me pointers. He told me that I looked hot and that there was nothing sexier than seeing a badass woman shoot a gun. I told him that he'd better go down to The Armory Gun Range then, the new shooting range that had opened up on the other side of the town. As I had heard, it was one of the more popular pickup joints. Apparently, women liked seeing the size of a man's gun prior to going out with him.

Ranger came into the apartment a few minutes later. He had found a tray and was carrying up two bowls of soup, several packages of crackers, a veggie sandwich, a couple of milks, a couple of yogurts, a banana and an apple juice. He put the tray down on the counter and served the food while I got cutlery. I poured us glasses of cold water and sat down at my spot at the breakfast bar.

"How has your day been?" asked Ranger as he sat beside me and reached for a spoon.

I smiled. "Good. It started with an implosion, the good kind, and proceeded through the day without any of the bad kind."

Ranger thought about smiling. "Then it sounds like a good day. You said that no one appears to have anything on them at Nature-Fresh, other than Barry?"

"No. Everybody seems clean. However, there was one thing that I thought was interesting."

"What's that?"

"The person who is the accountant? Robert Buckley? From looking more in-depth at him, I found a few references to his ex-boyfriend. His name was Barry Zeiberman. This seems odd as I'm sure there aren't too many Barry Zeibermans around. It isn't a common name."

"Did you find any references to Robert Buckley on Barry Zeiberman's social media?"

"No, but it could have been wiped clean. However, on Robert's Facebook account, there was a picture from about a month ago with the two of them together. Then there was a post that talked about Barry. He called him the love of his life and said that he didn't understand why Barry didn't want to be in a relationship with him any longer. He sounded pretty broken up by the split."

"When did the split occur?"

"Shortly after Robert got him on staff, from the best that I can see. I don't know if Barry intended his relationship to be short-lived and was only using Robert as a means to an end, or whether it was just a coincidence that the food tampering happened just after they broke up."

"Interesting. I'll have to pass the information along to Cal."

"Perhaps Jose would have been a better person to have put undercover because of his homosexuality. He would have been able to cozy up to Robert."

"Hindsight is 20/20. We didn't know that either Barry or Robert was gay at the time, otherwise I might have."

"That's true."

"What's left for you to do?"

"Just before lunch, I got a call back from one of the farmers. They said that their meat is not organic and they have never marketed it as such. I thought I'd call all the farmers and investigate the organic angle a little more. Also, Elena has told each of her suppliers to send me a list of their employees. Since Manoso's owns at least twenty percent of each of their supplying companies, she thought they would cooperate and she told me to let me know if they didn't. I have started receiving this information already and thought I would spend the rest of today finishing the abattoir names and starting to work on the names of the employees of the other suppliers. I'll send half the list out to Miguel to work on this afternoon."

"Did he find anything in the abattoir's employees so far?"

"No. He said that his list is clean. I talked to him about what I found and sent him my report so that he had a better idea of what to look for and could more accurately target his investigation."

"That's great, babe."

I finished my soup and looked down at it in shock. I looked up at Ranger with a smile. "I ate the whole thing, and I haven't thrown up yet!"

Ranger thought about smiling. "Thank God", he said. "I've been worried that you'll be losing weight soon. I was thinking about asking Ella to make gravy for dinner."

I laughed. With each of my sister's pregnancies, she had adored and craved gravy. Beef gravy, chicken gravy, giblet gravy, gravy made from bought bouillon, it didn't matter. She loved it all and consumed it in vast quantities. She even ate it for breakfast, and I attributed her excessive weight gain to her craving for gravy. She didn't see anything wrong with drinking a cupful of gravy with her meal, but it seemed a little abnormal to me. Of course, I was regularly enjoying a cup of chicken broth with mine, so maybe I wasn't as far off her obsession with gravy as I would like. I said that to Ranger.

"Yes, babe, but chicken broth is low in calories and low in fat but higher in nutrients. Comparatively, gravy has the same amount of protein per cup, but is relatively high in calories and fat. Your sister was consuming it by the cupful. She drank at least three cups of it per day and often more like six. If you drank the same amount of chicken broth, you'd be drinking about the equivalent calorie count of a single piece of bread whereas Val was getting half of her daily calorie count through her gravy. Additionally, from what I could see, her consumption of calories didn't end with just gravy. She ate a lot of everything. You won't gain as much weight as Val. Don't worry about it."

Ranger ate the last of his sandwich and placed the dirty crockery and utensils on the tray to take back to the break room. "Do you still feel like a banana smoothie?" he asked.

I smiled, and he leaned over and kissed me lightly before getting up and walking around the breakfast bar into the kitchen. He pulled out the immersion blender and a large glass, added the banana and the yogurt and mashed it together, and slowly added the milk until it was the right consistency. He put in a drop or two of vanilla, mixed it all together for a minute longer, then handed me the drink and washed the blender, dried it, and put it away.

I took a large mouthful of the drink, swallowed, and sighed. "Better than gravy any day", I said. Ranger smiled. "You never told me. How was your morning?"

"It was good. Nate and I interviewed the potential HR managers this morning, and we selected one. He was a clear winner and we are happy with our choice. Nate will be phoning his references this afternoon, but we don't anticipate any problems. I will give his name to Miguel to run through the system as well, just so that we can get all the information we can on him before we offer him a job."

"Was he former military?"

"He was, but he was a recruiter. We had contacted all the military recruiters and tried to head hunt a few away from the military. The person we selected was coming up to his retirement age anyway and was wondering what he wanted to do with his life. He is married and has three teenaged children and would like to settle his family on the eastern seaboard. While his own family has all passed away, his wife's family all live in New York, and he said that he and his wife were excited about the chance to live closer to her family. He had heard of Rangeman and had researched us prior to the interview, and said he was impressed with what we did. He had several insightful questions regarding our business that showed that he had done a good job researching us. He seemed enthused about the opportunity."

"That sounds great! It will be good for you to have an HR person on staff. Did he have any good ideas for other people to hire into the HR team?"

"He did. He said he was excited about the ability to grow a team of his own. He had been a recruiter who had developed a team in the military and he said, although he thought everyone in his team was talented, he thought one person on his team was a particularly skilled recruiter and he would be interested in approaching this person to see if they were interested in making the shift. He said that he would look into potential trainers to see if there was someone in the military that was known for being especially good. We explained to him that we were looking for two trainers – we don't need someone to teach shooting or mission-related skills, but rather someone who could teach hostage negotiation, sensitivity training, that sort of thing, and another to teach first aid. He said that he might know of some people who would be good at that, but it would take him longer to find trainers than it would to find recruiter, just because he didn't know the trainers as well as he knew the recruiters."

"That's fair."

"That's what I thought."

"Do all your staff have first aid training?"

"Yes, they do. Everyone on my staff has an emergency first aid training course with a basic level of CPR, but I encourage people to get a higher level of CPR. My goal is to have all staff, including administrative and support staff, to have extensive first aid training equivalent to that of an emergency medical responder with additional mental health training, and a CPR-HCP. That's the same level of CPR that nurses are required to get. I'll also require that all staff recertify their qualifications each year. I know that is more frequent than is required, but I think it is important for staff to be up to date on their certifications."

"I don't have any first aid training or CPR. That probably would be a good thing to get with having a baby, wouldn't it?"

"It's a good thing to get, period. Hopefully soon we'll have a trainer in place who can teach you emergency first aid. We're planning on having both adult and child dummies for people to practice on, just because first aid skills are so important in life in general."

"Do you already have your CPR-H-whatever you called it?"

"CPR-HCP? Yes, I do. I also have the Emergency Medical Responder designation for first aid. I needed it as a Ranger and have kept it up ever since. It will be easier to recertify, however, with having a trainer on staff. Since our staff is growing so fast, I see our first aid trainer as being a fulltime position on its own. Because of that, I suggested that the HR manager look into the Red Cross or the Order of St. John or the hospitals as somewhere suitable to find a trainer. A nurse or a former paramedic would be excellent in the role. I think, however, the other trainer should be from the military so that they can offer the hostage negotiation and sensitivity training and other soft-skills training that is required."

"That makes sense. So Miguel is looking into the potential HR manager today?"

"Yes. Miguel said that he is glad that you are back because he has so many priority research assignments in front of him that he hardly knows what to prioritize any longer. I told him that this HR manager comes first, but that I hope that it doesn't take him very long to do."

"That makes sense."

"After Miguel is finished looking into John Parks, I have instructed him to contact you and get other names from you to research from your list. We need to know whether there are any other links between Barry and any other people, or whether there is a potential poisoner in the other suppliers."

"Have you started working with the Newark police?"

"I called the police this morning, but they called back while I was in the interviews for the HR manager. I'll return their call this afternoon and hope that we'll be able to link up with each other."

"Have you talked to Raphael or Cal today?"

"Raphael said they had two more poisonings last night, but that he had followed the shipment through from the time it came off the truck through to the time it was served on the plate. There was no point that the meat could have been contaminated on site. Elena called him into a meeting with the health inspector. He had to show his Rangeman badge – that was a good idea of yours to give all Operations staff one – and the badge seemed to impress the health inspector just as much as it does skips. He talked about the investigation that we were doing and what we had found so far. The health inspector ended up not charging Manoso's as she had first intended on doing, and said that she would work with us and the police to stop this poisoning from continuing to occur. I told Raphael that his job was now done and he could come home, and he asked if he could stay a little longer. He said the food was so good and my parents were spoiling him so much that he couldn't imagine a better vacation. He said it was a dream assignment." Ranger shook his head. "And he said my baby tush was cute." I laughed. "You can laugh all you want, but it wasn't your bare-assed baby pictures that your mother showed your staff. Remind me never to take pictures of our baby without a diaper on."

"You mean, we wouldn't even have any pictures of our baby in a bubble bath?"

"Do the bubbles over their tush?"

"Absolutely."

"Okay, I'll allow those then."

I laughed again. "You know, I don't think my parents have any pictures of me in my wherewithal. Although there are pictures of me without a top on, there aren't any pictures of me without at least bubbles covering my bits."

"Lucky you."


	14. Chapter 14

Since Miguel was investigating John Parks after lunch, I called each of the farmers. None of them raised organic beef, and I was able to email that information through to Ranger. I copied that information to Miguel and, by the time I had finished finding out whatever I could about the farmers, Miguel was finishing his research into John Parks. He said that he had sent the research results to Ranger, but told me that there were no issues of concern that he could see. I was glad. I knew how swamped Ranger was with HR issues, and having a person in place to take over some of those responsibilities would open up a huge chunk of time for him. As he said, it was something he wished that he had done a while ago.

Miguel and I divvied up the remainder of the names to research, and as I looked at the supplier lists I realized that both Miguel and I would be doing this research consistently for the next few days. I warned Miguel of the time commitment in front of us, and sent a warning through to Ranger so that he was prepared for the long haul.

Ranger came up at five to do some work from his home office for the rest of the afternoon – and to encourage me to have a nap for an hour or two before dinner. I was deep into researching when he arrived, and I looked up at him in confusion. "Is everything alright?" I said. I looked down at the time. "My goodness! I didn't realize it was as late as it was."

Ranger smiled. "Find anything interesting?"

"Not yet, but I'll keep digging. Miguel said that he'll work into the evenings for the next few days and will work this weekend as well so that we can get caught up on our research requests. He said that he has a pile of requests sitting on our desk. He had asked me whether I would be researching into the evening and on the weekend, and I said I would. So he said that he would work overtime as well, and he suggested a goal – and I agreed to it – to have Elena's research done by Monday. It might be impossible, but that's the goal that we're aiming for."

"Just as long as you don't overtire yourself again", said Ranger. "It's not good for you or the baby to overstress yourself."

"Yes, but I'll be able to take nap breaks. Additionally, I'll be able to do my research with my feet up on the sofa rather than working at my desk. I'll take it easy."

"Okay", said Ranger. "I'll remind you to take naps as well." He smiled. "Like now. You look exhausted. Why don't you sleep for a while?" I yawned as if on cue, and looked at the research still waiting to be done. "Babe, it will be waiting for you when you wake up."

I sighed, but I knew that Ranger was right. The research wasn't going anywhere. I put the laptop to sleep and placed it on the coffee table, and then got to my feet and stretched. Ranger captured my hand and led me into the bedroom, pulled down the duvet, and tucked me in. He kissed me on my forehead and then on my cheek. "Have a good sleep", he said. "I'll wake you in time for dinner." It wasn't long before I was sound asleep.

Two hours later, Ranger kissed me awake. I blearily opened my eyes. "Already?" I said with a groan.

Ranger nodded. "Do you want me to let you sleep for the night?"

I thought about it for a second, dreamed longingly about it for a second, but then I sighed. "No, I had better get up. As you said, the research isn't going anywhere, and it isn't fair to ask Miguel to work overtime and not do any myself."

"Miguel isn't pregnant."

"I know, but I shouldn't get any special considerations just because I am. Miguel, I'm sure, doesn't want to be working overtime."

"Actually, he came into my office this afternoon and asked me if overtime was going to be a typical thing. I said it might, especially over the next year and a half, and asked him if that was a problem. He said he would prefer it. He had been saving to buy a house, and he was meeting with the bank tonight. He said that, if he would be doing overtime over the next few months, that would allow him to purchase more of a house than he'd be able to afford otherwise. He seemed to look upon overtime favorably."

"Did he seem to mind doing research? I know it's not his favorite thing to do."

"I asked him that, and he said that he'd rather do research than monitoring, and being able to do research and patrol was the best option of all. He seemed quite happy about his new permanent role in the company."

"That's good, because he is a talented researcher and I would be sad to see him leave the department."

"That's what I told him that you'd say. He asked me what you were planning on doing with skip tracing after the baby was born."

"What did you say?"

"I told him what you had told me, that you were thinking you might go out to capture the regulars and the easy ones, and do the capture plans on the remainder and that, like him, you wouldn't be happy doing research and only research permanently. Miguel said that he would be interested in learning how to do capture plans like you do so that he'd be able to help out that way as well. Speaking of capture plans, this afternoon I hammered out an agreement with Les Sebring to pick up his skips. The paperwork is being drawn up by the legal department tomorrow."

"What will happen to his existing bounty hunters?"

"Apparently he only has Jeanne Ellen right now and she is swamped. She won't be very happy though – not so much to be losing the business, but rather to be losing it to me."

"I remember when you went out with her."

"It ended with a bang. She wanted me to hire her to work at Rangeman, but she wasn't former military, nor was she male. I refused to hire her. She got mad and tried to force the issue. I got mad and left. I haven't talked to her since. I only went out with her a few times."

"She would make an excellent bodyguard for the personal security department. You really need to hire a female bodyguard. There are a number of places that male bodyguards just can't go, like the women's bathroom. I know that I filled in the role for you a few times in the past, but I don't really have the necessary self-defense skills and had to consequently have another bodyguard accompany me when we were guarding the clients. I won't be able to bodyguard anyone for another two years. Although, having said that, Lula offered to bodyguard any future clients for you."

"Does she have any noticeable skills that I could use bodyguarding? Could she, say, subdue a threat?"

"She does have her signature move."

"What's that?"

"Tackling the assailant and flattening them like a pancake."

Ranger laughed. "I actually hired Amelia Lu into the role today. You don't need to worry about bodyguarding anyone any longer – and I won't be relegated to hiring Lula in your stead."

I smiled. Amelia Lu was one of my skips that Rangeman had captured for me a week before. She was a returning vet that had been struggling to survive. Unable to find a job, penniless and starving, out of desperation she had stolen a bag of hamburger buns. She had been caught. Her friends put up the money for her to get out on bail, but they didn't provide her with the money to buy food. She had forgotten what day it was and consequently missed her court date, but was glad to get captured again so that she could get three meals a day.

"I had Miguel research her last week" said Ranger. "She will be an excellent bodyguard. I went to the jail to talk to her this afternoon, and I was impressed by what I saw. I told her that I would pay bail and would start paying her a salary immediately, as long as she agreed to show up for her court date, agreed to Rangeman training and psychological therapy, and was willing to wear a Rangeman uniform."

"What did she say?"

"She started to cry. She was so grateful that she didn't even ask what the salary was. I told it to her anyway, and she started to cry again. I thought she was going to get down on the floor and lick my boots in gratitude. I had taken the Manager for the Personal Security department and Tank with me, and I left Dave to pay her bail and take her to her apartment. He texted me after they arrived at her place and told me that he was taking her home for his wife to spoil. Apparently, the only furniture she had in her room was a broken-down mattress on the floor, and they startled rats when they opened the door. Amelia was embarrassed about where she lived and Dave was appalled. He said that nobody, let alone someone who had spent their whole working career protecting our country, should have to live in conditions like that."

"I've taken in skips who live in similar conditions. It's very sad. When you see where they live, you understand why they have turned to a life of crime."

"I know. It could have been any one of the people who work for me. Hell, for that matter, it could have been me. If I hadn't had my parents to go to when I left the army, things would have looked pretty lean for me as well."

"Will Amelia be able to survive based on what we are paying her?"

"We will be paying her a salary that is greater than what she was earning as a soldier, and will be paying her overtime pay when she is on an assignment that requires it. I explained to her that I want her working with a trainer to increase her self-defense training, and I want her working with a nutritionist so that she is building back the muscle that she has lost since she left the army. I also want her to renew her first aid qualifications."

"And she was good with all that?"

"She was. She told me, as if it would be a deterrent, that she was struggling mentally with her experiences in the army. She said she suffered from nightmares. I told her that we all did, and that it gets better with therapy and being surrounded by supportive people. I have contacted Ella and told her Amelia's uniform sizes. Apparently she takes the same size of clothes that you take, so I was wondering whether you'd be available tomorrow to meet her and lend her some clothes until we can order in a uniform for her. Apparently she currently only has two changes of clothes. She sold the rest to try to raise money to cover her rent. Dave said that he'd wash her clothes tonight, but that her own clothes looked pretty ratty."

"We can do that. Do you mind if I tell her that I am pregnant? It might make her feel better about borrowing my clothes."

"That's fine with me. I'm good on telling everyone now, but I understand why you might want to continue to wait."

"I think we should tell your family before we tell the Rangeman staff. It's only fair."

"That makes sense." He smiled. "I just want to shout it to the rooftops now. I don't want to wait any longer."

I smiled. "I'm getting to that point as well."

"We could call my family tonight, and let them know about the pregnancy."

"You don't want to wait to see their faces?"

"I don't want to wait, period."


	15. Chapter 15

"How did it go with the police this afternoon?" I asked Ranger as I ate my first bite of the chicken and pesto rigatoni bake. I moaned and eyed the pan. I had taken a very small portion, but there was plenty for me to have seconds before bed.

Ranger smiled and took a bite of his own. "Good. After I emailed them the papers that said that we worked as consultants to the TPD, and they had a chance to talk to Morelli, they decided to work closely with us but not impede our investigation. As I told them, we already have someone on the ground and we would be willing to work with them, but I wasn't willing to pull Cal from the investigation. The health inspector, by that point, had already talked to them as well, so she had been able to tell them how helpful we had been."

"That's great. What are the next steps?"

"Tomorrow, Mike and I are going to Nature-Fresh to review their system and design something that will make their place more secure, both to internal and external threats."

"What happens if they aren't willing to put in the system?"

"Then I have Elena's approval to tell them that she will sell her shares back to them and go elsewhere for her meats. I have not yet told Elena that she is paying organic prices for non-organic meat. I'm afraid the knowledge will break her when it comes on top of the other information."

"What will you do?"

"I will create a report for her, and will include it in the report. My job is to find and eliminate the food tampering. I cannot get lost in the weeds. However, after this issue is straightened out, she needs to know about the fraud that is happening. I have, however, told the police. They found that very interesting."

"I'm sure", I said. "So the police are working with you?"

"I had to go over our qualifications and explain the background of our staff. I told them that Cal has his degree in criminology, and that seemed to carry some weight with them."

"Does he?"

Ranger thought about smiling. "He does, actually. That's one of the reasons that I selected him. He had been working on his degree for years, and had been doing it online while he was stationed overseas. He just graduated last June. I gave him a raise and asked him whether he would be interested in doing more investigative work when we had it available. Cal said that he would be thrilled to do some detective work and that, although he loved his coursework, he didn't want to leave Rangeman. He said he had done the degree for his own sake, because he was interested in it, and to know that he had accomplished something big. Tank and I have, in fact, talked about starting an Investigative branch and having Cal head it up."

"Good for him."

"I'm very proud of him. He worked hard on that degree, and that needs to be recognized."

Ranger and I finished dinner, and Ranger made me another banana milkshake for dessert. I enjoyed every mouthful of it. If Ranger was just as good a cook with other foods, I was glad that he was willing to take on the cooking responsibilities of our relationship. Cooking was not my forte. It was something I had never learned growing up. My sister had excelled in the kitchen, but I'd had a few flops and quickly learned that it was much more fun to sit with my father and watch sports than it was to create masterpieces that were consumed in ten minutes – less if there was a particularly enticing dessert that we wanted to get to or if there was a play-off game on the television. In those instances, we'd been known to consume our meals in less than five.

As I sipped my banana milkshake and Ranger sipped his peppermint tea, we called his parents to tell his mother that she could spread the news. I could hear the relief in her voice. "Do you know how hard I have had found it to not mention a word of what is going on?"

"I know, and I appreciate your effort, Mama", said Ranger. I could hear the laugh in his voice.

"So I can tell your grandmother and father and Rosa?"

"Absolutely. Are they at the restaurant right now?"

"They are. They are trying to show solidarity to Elena and William. Are you working with the police now?"

"I am. I've been working with them all afternoon."

"Thank you for taking us on as a client. Elena said that you refused payment for your services."

"I don't want money. You have done so much for me over the years. It is nice to be able to repay you."

"We didn't do anything. You became a good man all on your own."

"I wouldn't have been if it wasn't for you, for my family. You have been the strength behind me, the people who have given me confidence to change my life for the better."

I could hear his mother start to cry. "I am so proud of you", she said.

Ranger smiled slightly. "I love you too, Mama."

"I'll let you go so that you can call your siblings. They will be equally as happy for you and Stephanie. Your Christmas party will be a wonderful celebration."

"I have already told Julie, and Elena found out when she came to talk to me the other day. You can tell her that she is allowed to talk about it now, but I'll also send her a text. I know that she is working this evening."

"Okay. Are you planning on calling Celia and Maria now?"

"I am. I thought I'd tell Uncle Alejandro and Aunt Tia tonight as well. I'll let you tell the rest of our family."

"Are you planning on telling them about the marriage?"

"Not specifically, but if they ask you can tell them that we are having a private ceremony that just immediate family will be invited to. I don't want a big deal made about it, because it is something very private to us. Stephanie and I have requested that we don't have the showers or the parties in preparation for the ceremony. We don't need anything in particular, and both of us have been married before so it would seem a little odd to us to have a shower."

"We can do a baby shower though, can't we?"

"Yes, we can."

"Especially if it is something that Ranger and I can both go to", I said. "I hate baby showers, and I want to spread the pain."

Ranger's mother laughed.

"I had another question for you", I said. "When Ranger and I are married, would you mind if I call you Mama? I call my own mother Mom, so Mama would be a special name just for you."

I could hear the tears in her voice as she agreed. "It would mean a lot to me if you wanted to call me Mama", she said.

Ranger looked at me, a soft expression on his face, and he mouthed the words, 'thank you'. I smiled at him.

We hung up a few minutes later and Ranger looked at me. "I didn't know that you were planning on doing that", he said.

"I wasn't sure if she would mind. It's just that I don't particularly want to call her by her first name if we are married."

"Mind? You just made my mother's day."

I smiled.

Ranger called each of his sisters and put them on three-way calling so that he had both of them on the phone at the same time. He told them our news, and their congratulations were loud and earnest. "When is the baby due?" asked Celia.

"June twenty-eighth. I'm hoping the baby will be born on time. I can't imagine going through a summer being pregnant", I said.

Celia laughed. "I did, and it's not for the faint of heart. You want to wear shorts because you are hot, but are unable to easily reach your legs and are unable to shave. It's torture."

I laughed. "I hate it when my legs haven't been shaved."

"I, however, don't particularly care", said Ranger. "It's just hair."

"I know, but it grosses me out. There is nothing like freshly shaved and moisturized legs", I said.

"Even better is freshly shaved and moisturized legs, and wearing silky or soft clothing. You can especially feel the texture with your smooth skin", said Maria.

"Are you telling me that I'm going to be shaving and moisturizing your legs when you get bigger?" said Ranger.

"That's even grosser than unshaved legs", I said with a shudder.

"Thank God", said Ranger. "I would do it if it was really important to you, but it definitely wouldn't be my first choice of things to do."

I laughed.

Shortly afterwards, we got off the phone and, as Ranger composed an email to his brother to tell him of his impending uncle status and called the aunt and uncle who'd had such a guiding impact upon Ranger as he was growing up, I started researching again. By the time we had gone to bed, I had discovered another nine people who had nothing more nefarious in their past other than unpaid bills and, with one, a failure to pay his child support payments. While that in itself made me want to dig into his past to bring up with the police, it would have been wasted time with all the other work waiting for me, and I regretfully pushed that name aside and moved on to researching the next name on the list.


	16. Chapter 16

Ranger woke me at nine the next morning, but told me that he had to leave to get to Newark with Mike so that they could review the Nature-Fresh facility. He left me to shower and drink a few mouthfuls of flat ginger ale, and although I was nauseous I was proud that I hadn't thrown up. It was a small accomplishment, but I would take what I could get.

I sent a text asking Dave when Amelia would be in the building, and by the time I had dried my hair and applied my makeup, Dave had responded that she was currently being given a tour of the offices, but she would be back at his desk in about twenty minutes. I smiled. I could work with twenty minutes.

I dressed in another pair of eatin' pants and a long-sleeved Rangeman t-shirt. Because my stomach wasn't as stable as I would like it to be and I didn't feel as comfortable as I was telling myself I was, I also put on a hoody of Ranger's and rolled up the sleeves. It made Ranger laugh, but I found his clothes to be far more comfortable than my own. He often asked me why he bothered buying me a uniform. Since I didn't think the Rangeman uniform came in maternity sizes, I thought that it was just as well that he didn't mind me wearing his clothes. I would be wearing them a lot over the next six months.

I gathered a number of outfits that no longer fit me and put them in a bag, and walked down to Dave's office, and passed Miguel on the way. "Are you working in your office today?" asked Miguel. "I can work out of a conference room again, if you prefer."

I smiled. "Thanks, Miguel. I'll actually work out of the apartment again today, so there is no need to vacate my office. I just wanted to talk to Amelia before I started work for the day."

"I saw her pass on the way to the break room a minute ago", said Miguel.

"Thanks." I changed direction and walked into the break room. Dave was standing with a woman, with the petite build, dark hair and brown eyes of someone with Asian descent. She was staring at the array of food that was spread out in front of them. Dave looked up and smiled at me. Amelia continued to look at the food, stunned by the bounty before her. "Hi", I said.

Amelia whipped around to face me, her hands behind her back as if she had been doing something wrong. "You must be Amelia", I said as I held out my hand for a shake. Amelia smiled tentatively and put her hands out in front of her again, and shook my hand. "I'm Stephanie. Stephanie Plum. I'm one of the other two female employees. The third female, Ella, is the miracle worker who leaves food around the building for people to eat."

"Is it like this every day?" She sounded amazed.

"Yes. Breakfasts, lunches and dinners are provided each in a separate two-hour window, and snacks and drinks are provided around the clock. There are currently two break rooms – one on the second floor and this one here on the fifth floor. You are allowed to take as much as you would like. We just request that you eat what you take. When we get the redesign of the office space in another year, there will be four floors of offices and there will be a break room on each floor where snacks and beverages will be supplied 24/7. The sixth floor, which is currently Ella's apartment, will become a staff lounge. Ella will provide meals there for anyone interested."

"Wow. I can't believe this place."

"I know", I said with a smile. "Rangeman is pretty special. I was a bounty hunter before I came here and I still split my time between being a bounty hunter and a researcher. You were actually one of my skips, but I've been so busy doing research that Ranger suggested that Hal and Hector pick you up instead so that I would have more time in front of my computer."

"They were so nice. They even bought me lunch."

"They said that you were a lovely person to work with and, in fact, it was their reaction to the way you handled yourself that made Ranger look into your background and to ultimately offer you a job."

"He's amazing."

"Ranger?" I grinned. "Yes, he is."

"Ranger and Stephanie are a couple", said Dave. "And judging by the ring on your finger, you are about to be married to him?"

"Good spotting", I said. "We are keeping it quiet. Ranger has a lot of people in his past who he doesn't want to know that we are getting married. So, it's going to be a relatively secret wedding."

"If you wanted it to be secret you shouldn't wear a ring", said Dave.

I smiled. "That's why I said that it was a _relatively_ secret wedding. I have worn a ring on that finger for years. It's just recently changed to Ranger's ring."

"Will you wear a wedding band?" asked Amelia.

"We're planning on it", I said. "That's important to me, just as much as it's important to Ranger to not wear a wedding band. We both have our own reasons and are supportive of the reasons that the other person has."

"He seems really nice."

"Ranger? He's the best. You could not ask to meet a more honorable person. But then, I'm biased."

Hector walked into the break room. "We all are, Steph", he said. "There isn't one person on his staff that wouldn't walk through fire for him." He helped himself to a coffee. "Some people he has saved from the circumstances they were in. With others, he had heard of their stories and offered a job based on some quality that he saw."

"How did you get your start at Rangeman?" Amelia asked Hector.

"I had been part of a gang, and he saw something in me that he liked. He rescued me." He turned to me, and I could tell that he didn't want to give any more information out about his start. I could understand why. His start was a secret that Ranger had entrusted to me. Hector had left the army when his cousin was kidnapped by a gang and made into a sex slave. He joined the gang, rescued his cousin, and single-handedly brought down the whole gang structure. The TPD, after the case was closed, offered him a job. But Ranger had heard of Hector's role in bringing the gang leaders down and also offered him a job – and Ranger's job had better benefits and a bigger paycheck associated with it. Rangeman won.

However, Hector didn't talk about his role in bringing the gang down. He told people that he was part of the gang and let the teardrop tattoos under his eye scare people away from asking more questions. When Ranger hired him, Hector had agreed to work for Rangeman under the condition that his role in bringing the gang down was kept hidden. He wanted people to be scared of him and he perpetuated the tough guy front so that Ranger would be able to use his scary persona to his advantage. It was only through working with him that I had discovered that the tough guy persona hid a tender and compassionate heart.

He looked at me with imploring eyes. "What about you, Steph?" he said.

I smiled and rescued him. "I was an out-of-work lingerie buyer, and my cousin, Vinnie, owned a bail bonds company that was looking for a bounty hunter. I was down to my last few dollars and didn't know how I was going to pay rent, so I blackmailed my way into the job with Vinnie. However, I was extremely unqualified for the role. The office manager felt sorry for me and told me to talk to Ranger and get him to mentor me. Ranger taught me everything I know about being a bounty hunter which, come to think of it, doesn't say good things about his ability to teach others. However, that was my introduction to Ranger."

"How did you become his researcher then?" asked Hector.

"I have worked periodically for Ranger over the years whenever his feelings of pity for me coincided with my need for money. I have helped him in a variety of ways, and have generally failed in all of them except research. It is somewhere he can stash me that I don't impact negatively on too much else in the company, I can't get into too much trouble, and I can work flex hours so that I can work it around my bounty hunting job."

Tank walked into the break room and I noticed Amelia's eyes bug out at the size of Tank. At about six and a half feet and built like Dwayne Johnson, Tank was not a petite person. "Don't listen to her", he said with a smile as he crossed the room to pour himself a coffee. "Steph is the best researcher we've ever had."

"That's true", said Miguel as he joined us in the room. "I used to work the research desk and was thrilled with Steph came and took over. Now I do research part time and patrol part time, and I'm happy. I'm glad that Steph is now the Manager of Research."

"Steph periodically is endangered when she is chasing skips", said Tank, "and about eight months ago she was using Ranger's apartment as a safe house. Ranger didn't want Steph to leave the building and Steph was bored. Since we were short-staffed and Steph already knew how to research, Ranger asked her to step in and help out. And since Steph is the nice person she is, she did. After the danger had passed, Ranger begged her to stay."

"So did I", said Miguel.

"So did I", said Tank. "I knew how unhappy you were doing research full time, Miguel, and I was constantly worried that you would leave the company if we forced you to stay in a research role."

"I wouldn't have left, but I would have regularly begged you to get me out of there."

Tank smiled. "The point is that Steph is a talented researcher and is a valuable team member, and there is little that we wouldn't do for her."

I felt my face turn red and I turned to Amelia. "That's one thing you'll find about Rangeman. We are a team, almost a family of sorts, and supporting each other is important to us. Did Dave tell you about the office changes that are scheduled to occur over the next year?"

"He said that there is going to be another tower built next door?"

"That's right. In the new tower will be change rooms for the gym and the pool, and there will be both male and female change rooms. At the moment, since you and I are the only women who would use the gym, there are no women's change rooms. I just wanted to let you know that you will not always be relegated to changing in a rest room and waiting to have a shower when you get home."

"I don't mind."

"That may be, but it isn't right and I wanted to let you know that we know it isn't right, and I wanted to let you know that we are taking steps to change this in the office redesign."

"Thank you for letting me know."

"Uniforms have been ordered for you, but Ranger said we were the same size and thought you could use some of my uniforms until yours show up."

"I don't want to take your clothes."

"I won't be needing them for another year or so, so don't worry about taking them from me."

There was a silence for a moment as the men absorbed that fact, then Hector let out a whoop and lifted me in the air and spun me in a circle. "Stop!" I said with a laugh. He put me down. "The baby does not like spinning in circles."

"He or she will", said Hector. He leaned down and gave me a kiss on my cheek. "Congratulations. You'll be a fabulous mother. If you want to name the baby after me, you could. I wouldn't mind."

I laughed.

Tank grinned and patted me on my shoulder. "You and Ranger finally decided to tell people?"

"We decided last night, partly because I didn't think want Amelia feeling bad about taking me away from wearing clothes that I barely fit into now and am less and less likely to fit into in the future."

"I love babies", said Amelia. "If you ever want a babysitter, I'm your gal. I had always intended to take my early childhood education certificate when I got out of the army so that I could work in a daycare. However, life happened and I wasn't able to take the course."

"I'll keep you in mind, thanks", I said. "Do you want kids?"

"I do, but it is getting a little late for me. I'm thirty-five and I don't have anyone special in my life. The chances of me having a child are pretty well nil. I make a great auntie though, and I don't have any children in my life to spoil yet. If you would let me, I'd love to spoil yours."

I smiled. "Somehow, I think this baby will like it very much."

"How far along are you?"

"Almost eleven weeks. It's been a long haul already. I had to spend about two weeks flat on my back because I had started to bleed and we weren't sure whether I was losing the baby. It came at a terrible time work-wise, so Miguel has had to work full-time on the research desk to cover for me."

"You knew that Steph was pregnant and you didn't tell anyone?" said Hector to Miguel.

"I was sworn to secrecy", said Miguel with a grin.

"Do you know what you are having?" asked Hector.

"No, I won't find out for another six to eight weeks", I said. "However, Ranger and I haven't decided as to whether we are going to tell everyone what we are having. There are pros and cons with each option."

"I want to know", said Hector. "I have some shopping to do." He grinned. "I have to get back to the monitoring station, but thanks for my good news for the week, Steph." He gave me another hug before walking out of the break room. As he went, I could hear him say, "guess what? Ranger and Steph are having a baby!"

"That news will spread through the ranks like wildfire", said Tank with a smile.

I laughed. "Ranger said that he'd put out a bulletin tonight to let everyone know and I told him that he could if he wanted to, but that I would announce it to a couple of people this morning and I was sure the whole office would know before he got back from his meeting today."

Tank laughed. "If I were you I would have put money on it. You would have had a surefire winner."

I grinned. "I put something better on it. I put a boon on it, and said if the news spread throughout the office I would get a free massage."

"What would have Ranger gotten if the news hadn't spread?"

"The ability to give me a massage. Honestly, I didn't care which way it went. Either way I was getting a good massage tonight, and either way I was the winner."

"Somehow", said Tank with a grin, "I think Ranger would figure that he was the winner in all this."

I laughed.


	17. Chapter 17

Miguel and I worked on our lists all morning, and I arranged to come down and eat lunch with Miguel at noon. I picked up a raisin scone and a fruit salad and a carton of milk, and I walked back to my office with my food in hand. "How's it going?" I asked as I sat in the guest chair in front of the desk.

Miguel smiled and pulled over his own sandwich and salad. "Slowly, but it's going. I have never seen so many people who have done absolutely nothing wrong in their lives."

I groaned. "I know what you mean. I was glancing over your list of names before I came downstairs – counting them, actually, and wondering how long it was going to take each of us to do the searches – when I noticed the name of Karen Buckley on your list. Have you researched her yet?"

"The production supervisor for the Berry Delicious fresh produce supplier? Not yet. She was further down the list and I haven't gotten to her. Why?"

"I was just thinking. One of the people on my list for the abattoir was Robert Buckley. He was the former boyfriend of the person we think might be the poisoner, Barry Zeiberman. Robert is the accountant at Nature-Fresh. It could be a coincidence, but I was wondering whether there was a relationship between Karen Buckley and Robert Buckley."

"I'll certainly check it out." He pulled up In-Spect and inputted Karen's name. "That can simmer away while we eat our lunch", he said. He turned back to me. "How are you feeling now?"

"Still quite nauseous, but I haven't thrown up today yet, so this is a good day."

"Maybe this is a sign that you'll be getting better soon."

"I can only hope."

"It has to get better sooner. After all, your first trimester is almost over."

"Apparently morning sickness lasting only the first trimester is a myth", I said with a grimace. "It often lasts four or five months."

"Great", said Miguel as he made a face.

I snorted. "You're telling me."

"When will you start to wear maternity clothes?"

"Probably soon. I'm not able to wear my structured clothes any longer, but my stretchy clothes still fit. However, I haven't had to go to a funeral with my grandmother in a while and that's good, since I no longer have anything suitable to wear."

"Do you go to funerals regularly with your grandmother?"

"Far more than I am interested in, that's for sure", I said. "My grandmother loves funerals. It's a way for her to get together with all her friends that are her own age. My mother has repeatedly told her that she would drive my grandmother to her friends' houses and nursing homes for a visit, but my grandmother has just as frequently told my mother that she likes the cookies better at the funeral home. My mother has offered to make cookies from scratch for my grandmother, and has even asked the funeral home for the recipe for my grandmother's favorite type of cookie so that she could make a batch. The funeral home was thrilled to give her the recipe. They hoped that would keep my grandmother away from the funeral home. But my grandmother said that my mother's cookies don't taste as good as the cookies at the funeral home, and so she goes regularly."

"You make it sound like your grandmother goes weekly to the funeral home."

"At least twice a week", I said, "and often more. She goes as often as someone will take her. My mother gets tired of taking her and refuses to go more than once a week, but my grandmother has friends that still drive, and they frequently take her. I get roped into going more frequently than I feel comfortable with as well."

"Why don't you like to go with your grandmother?"

"First, she often doesn't know the deceased or their grieving loved ones. It's embarrassing to express your condolences when you don't know the deceased's name. And second, my grandmother insists on an open casket and isn't above opening up any shut casket so that she can have a little look. This is again upsetting to the deceased's loved ones. When I take my grandmother to the funeral home, my mother expects the impossible and for me to corral my grandmother. But controlling my grandmother is like controlling which way the wind blows – absolutely impossible. It seems that, no matter what I do, my grandmother will do something outrageous, my mother will hear about it, and I will be cut off from pineapple upside-down cake as punishment. It hardly seems fair to me."

Miguel laughed. "I can see why you wouldn't want to be cut off pineapple upside-down cake. That cake is seriously good."

I smiled. "You feel my pain. My mother's pineapple upside-down cake is the best pineapple upside-down cake that I have ever tasted as well, and I have to admit that I'm a bit of a connoisseur."

Miguel grinned. "Have you ever had sopapilla? My mother makes a sopapilla cheesecake bar, and it is even better than pineapple upside-down cake. The next time my mother makes some for me, I'll save you a piece."

I grinned. "Thank you. Hopefully that won't be for another month. The doctor assures me that I'll be feeling quite a bit different in another month."

"Good to know."

The computer dinged and Miguel looked over at the screen. "Interesting", he said.

"What?" I said.

"Four people have taken out restraining orders on Karen. Of those men, one person has died from food poisoning and another two were poisoned but survived."

"Was it by the same type of pathogen that has been affecting the patrons at Manoso's?"

"I don't know, but that sounds like something the police should check out."

"Investigate her as deeply as you can, and send the report to Ranger as soon as you finish it. Don't wait for the remainder of the results to be returned before you send the report to Ranger. Does it say that Karen and Robert are related?"

Miguel read through the search results a little further, flipped through pages, and went back to his report. "It appears as though Karen is Robert's older sister. She's single and was married about ten years ago to a man who cheated on her. He died from food poisoning at a restaurant. From what I can tell, she didn't do it. There were a number of people who were affected by the food poisoning at that restaurant. The seafood supplier admitted to selling the restaurant seafood that had been sitting in a refrigeration truck overnight. They didn't realize until after the fact that the refrigeration unit had stopped working on the truck. It sounds like this is where Karen got her start."

"So the first one died by fluke but through it Karen realized that it was a good way to eliminate people?"

"Exactly. The news reports don't identify the toxin used to poison her other love interests."

"Okay. This is the money shot. Research this one as deep as you can. I will research how close Karen is to Robert through Robert's social media and shoot those results to you, and you can add them to your report. Ranger is at Nature-Fresh right now reviewing their systems. I know he would love to have that report from you for him to review on the way home from his site visit."

"What do you think is happening?"

"I don't know, but I suspect it has something to do with Robert's failed relationship with Barry." I finished the rest of my fruit salad and my milk, and picked up my used crockery. "I'll take this back to the break room, and then I'll go upstairs to do some more work on our list. I think we've identified the people involved, but just to be certain we need to do a cursory investigation on the other people in the different companies. When you send that email off to Ranger, please copy it to me."

"Will do. Are you planning on having a nap before starting work again for the afternoon?"

"No, I'll let Ranger come and chase me into bed for a nap when he gets home from his site visit. He seems to like to do that."

Miguel laughed. "I'm sure."

I grinned and threw the balled-up stretch wrap that had been covering my fruit salad at him, and Miguel caught it in the air as he laughed again. I stood and looked at him. "I forgot to ask – how did it go at the bank last night? Did you get a pre-approval for a mortgage?"

"The application has now been submitted, but according to the bank it appears as though I am eligible for far more of a mortgage than I thought I was. It is nice to have the pre-approval, but I would hate to go as much in debt as I am allowed to go. It would be a disaster if I lost my job or something."

"I don't think you have to worry about that. What kind of house are you looking for?"

"I actually love to work with my hands, so I'd be happy finding a house that is a bit of a fixer-upper. My father was in construction and had me working on construction sites helping to build homes from the time I was about thirteen on until I enlisted. I learned a lot."

"That's great. I'm sure there are a lot of homes that would be suitable for you to look at."

"I have set up a meeting with a real estate agent tonight to discuss what I am looking for, and to arrange to tour some properties. My parents just live in Delaware, and it doesn't take too long to come in. My dad said that, when I find a good potential, he'll come in and look at the house with me to come up with a plan as to the most efficient and cost-effective way of renovating the house. He said that, for the more difficult jobs, he'd even be willing to come and help the odd weekend."

"That's fabulous. I admire people who have home repair skills. The next few weeks as you identify and purchase your home will be exciting for you. Will this be your first home?"

"Yes. I currently rent, but I can't wait until I have a lawn of my own to cut."

"That's not something that has ever attracted me."

"You've never wanted a lawn of your own?"

"I had a lawn of my own and didn't like it much. Of course, that lawn came with my ex-husband, so that might explain it." Miguel laughed as I smiled. "I'll let you get back to your research. I'll look at the other names, but instinct says that you have identified the link already." I said goodbye to Miguel and went down to the break room to return my dishes.


	18. Chapter 18

I traced the relationship of Karen to Robert through Robert's social media and information, and sent the research results through to Miguel, before settling down to do cursory overviews of each of the other identified people. By the time Ranger walked in the door, I was thoroughly bored from looking into the lives of people who had done nothing wrong.

He smiled as he saw me. "I got Miguel's report on the way back and wasn't able to look at it since I was driving, but I stopped in my office for a few minutes so that I could review the report. He did a good job on it."

"Yes, he did."

"I sent it to my police contact, and she has already called me. She said that she would like to have a meeting with you and me. I set that meeting for three o'clock tomorrow afternoon. I thought the worst of your morning sickness would have passed by then."

"I'll have you know that I didn't throw up at all today."

Ranger smiled. "That's good news."

I laughed. "My stomach muscles were thanking me."

"I heard that I need to give you a massage tonight. Three people congratulated me when I got to the office, and I had five more emails saying the same thing."

I laughed again. "I didn't think it would take long for it to burn through the ranks. I'm not sure if everyone on the administrative and support floor would have heard, but I think most people in Operations now know."

Ranger's lips quirked up. "I plan on sending out a memo to everybody telling them that we are expecting, when the due date is supposed to be, and thanking everyone for their support while we go through this shift in our lives."

"I think that's a good idea. There might be someone in Alaska who didn't hear Hector's whoop of joy."

"Hector is so reserved that it is hard to imagine him getting that excited."

"He was. Did you know that it was Amelia's dream to work with children when she got out of the military?"

"She did mention that when I was talking to her. That's one of the reasons that I thought she might be a good bodyguard. Often the people that we are guarding act more like children than they do responsible, functioning adults."

"I know, but I was also wondering whether it would make sense for her to perhaps be the person we hire to look after our baby when he or she is born."

Ranger stopped and considered that. "She would tick all the boxes of what I would like to see in our nanny", he said. "She would have the self-defense and the first aid qualifications."

"She would also have the bodyguarding skills that we had talked about as being important." I paused. "I liked her, Ranger."

"I liked her as well. Can you see her being a part of the family?"

"Yes, I can. She sounds like she has far more homemaking skills than I do. When I asked her about hobbies, one of the things she mentioned was cooking. She seems to have a good sense of humor, and she was excited about us having a child because she said that she loves children and would love to have a child to spoil. I asked her whether she wanted some of her own and she told me that she will probably never have her own since she is thirty-five years old and she doesn't have anyone special in her life. I told her that she should consider taking courses at night for her early childhood education diploma at Douglass College, and that the education could only give her more tools to use when working with people in her role as a bodyguard. She looked interested in the concept. I saw her at the beginning of the day and gave her a large bag of clothing. She looked a little out of her depth, a little gobsmocked about everything that had happened to her in the last week. I went down to see her again at the end of the day to hear how her day went, and she was feeling a lot more comfortable about things. She seemed to be settling in well. My uniforms fit her perfectly and she said she was glad to have some new clothes to wear. She seems like a nice person. I have arranged to have lunch with her tomorrow. I think she will need a little hand-holding for the first little while as she gets settled, but I also think that she's going to be a valuable addition to the Rangeman family."

"That sounds good. Nate set her up with a nutritionist today, so she'll soon be starting appointments with that person. On the weekend, Tank and I are interviewing three personal trainers for the gym. We intend to hire someone to work solely for our gym, and to set up people on exercise regimes. I also want the person to teach krav maga. I thought we had the person identified, but after Rebecca tried to shoot out the gym with her machine gun, the trainer wasn't interested in coming back." Rebecca was someone who had targeted me just a few weeks before. She was part of a mob group wanting to take over the local branch of the mob, and she targeted me because I had identified her criminal involvement. She decided to seek revenge. First she firebombed my old apartment and, when that didn't scare me, she tried to mow down the Rangeman building with one hundred rounds. Unfortunately for her, the building was made with bulletproof glass. Unfortunately for us, she got away before we could capture her and it wasn't until a couple days later that she caught up with me again. We did capture her, however, and it all ended well…but she was one crazy chick that made sure that, if we had a girl, we would never call her Rebecca.

"It would be good for people to have a trainer. Those who are in Operations probably don't need one, but those who are in the Support and Administrative divisions probably do."

"I want to find someone who has a good understanding of nutrition as well. Amelia is not the only person that could use help from a dietician."

"That's true."

"Tank said, in the meantime, he will set Amelia up on an exercise program to get her started until the trainer starts with us full time. He said that he'd be glad to lead Amelia through some exercises."

"Amelia's eyes seemed to sparkle a bit brighter when Tank came in the room."

Ranger smiled. "Are you matchmaking?"

"Lula would never forgive me if I found someone that made Tank happy." Lula, my friend and partner from the bonds office, and Tank had gone out together for a few weeks when Lula conned Tank into a marriage proposal. Tank panicked and adopted three stray cats to help keep him calm. Lula was allergic to cats and told him that he had to choose between her and the cats. She was still mad that the cats won.

Ranger looked at me.

"Okay, I'm matchmaking", I said with a rueful smile. "It just would be nice if Tank had someone special in his life. He is such a good person, and he deserves having someone good to stand by his side."

"And you think Amelia is that person?"

"I don't know. I do know, however, that she looked intrigued."

Ranger chuckled softly and shook his head before saying, "I talked to Dave briefly. He said they have an apartment above their garage that is just sitting there empty. He is planning on offering the place to Amelia to rent for a nominal rate until she gets her feet on the ground. His wife was cleaning the apartment today and putting sheets on the bed for her. As he said, Amelia's first priority is probably buying her own car. She doesn't need to suck up her whole salary into housing when she has other priorities to address as well."

"Dave is a very nice man, isn't he?"

"Yes, he is. And he is thrilled to have a female guard to draw upon. I think, if you want Amelia to look after our baby, you will have to fight Dave for her."

I smiled. "I think I'm up to the challenge. After all, I have a secret weapon."

"What's that?"

"A baby and an honest chance to become a member of a family again. Her family all died in a car crash when she was seventeen. She has her aunt and uncle who assumed care for her, but she isn't close to them. She said that she was always made to feel like she was a nuisance, so she did the only thing that she could afford to do when she was eighteen to get her out of her aunt and uncle's house – she enlisted. She said that she hasn't talked to her aunt and uncle in years and, in fact, didn't even know if they were still living."

"Amelia may have taken a meandering path to our doors, but I think she is now where she is supposed to be. Dave is starting her training tomorrow."

"What will she have to learn?"

"In the army, she learned how to protect someone when the bullets are flying. Now she'll have to learn how to protect someone when they aren't." He captured my hand and drew me into the bedroom. "Do you want your massage now or before bedtime tonight?"

"That's a hard question", I said as I laughed. "In all seriousness, I think I am too tired to appreciate a massage right now."

Ranger smiled. "Then rest up, because you have a kick-ass massage coming to you tonight." He helped me down on the bed and pulled the duvet up and over my shoulders. "Have a good nap", he said. He gave me a light kiss on my lips. I pulled his pillow over as he walked out of the bedroom and buried my nose in the softness to smell the comforting mixed scent of Bulgari Green and Ranger. My pulse rate settled and I fell asleep seconds later.


	19. Chapter 19

By the time we had to leave for Newark for our meeting with the police the next day, I was thoroughly sick of researching staff and was happy for the break. I felt bad to be leaving Miguel with researching the rest, but his comment was that we were doing it in shifts. While I researched that evening, he was planning on looking at potential houses. Apparently his real estate agent had found a few that looked interesting to him.

"Did you find anyone else of interest?" said Ranger as he drove the Cayenne through the early traffic.

"No", I said. "Miguel and I are through about half the list of people, and the only people we have found of interest are Karen, Robert and Barry. Each looked interesting for their own reasons. How is it going with Cal?"

"He is slowly gaining the trust of Barry and Robert, but it is slow going. While Barry is quite vocal in his hatred of Nature-Fresh, Cal has found that no employee likes the company. They are all vocal in their hatred of the owners, and he could see any one of the employees as being the person sabotaging the company."

"If they hate it so much, why do they stay working at Nature-Fresh?" I asked.

"I asked Cal that, and apparently he had asked staff that as well. Staff said that there weren't many jobs open for butchers and that they were happy to have the job, despite the low pay and poor morale associated with working at Nature-Fresh."

"Why do they hate the job so much?"

"They said that they were paid less than other butchers and there isn't the bonus paid out that had been promised by the company when they were hired. They said that they were constantly asked to work overtime but they weren't paid for it because they were paid an annual salary rather than by the hour. They said it was the little things as well. The heating system was constantly kept at a low temperature in the winter but the air conditioner was barely put on in the summer. There was little support for workers and, if a worker hurt himself or herself, they were expected to finish their shift as if nothing happened and, as they did so, they were discouraged about reporting the accident. They were discouraged from taking holidays and talking to each other while they were working was banned. Similarly, they weren't allowed to listen to music. Cal said that the working environment is joyless. My parents and Elena and William are going to freak when they hear what has been going on."

I yawned. The warm sun streaming in through the windows mixed with soothing classical music playing softly on the stereo was working its magic, and I could hardly keep my eyes open. "Go to sleep, babe", said Ranger softly as his lips quirked up. "You have another forty-five minutes or so before we have to be at the police station."

"I'm not tired", I said as I gave an enormous, bone-cracking yawn.

"Babe", said Ranger.

I chuckled, closed my eyes, and quickly tumbled into sleep.

I woke up shortly before we parked at the station. I guess I could feel the difference in speed as Ranger pulled onto the parking lot, and I blearily opened my eyes. "Are we here already?"

Ranger thought about smiling. "I thought you weren't tired?"

I snorted. "Okay, maybe I was more tired than I thought."

Ranger parked the car and turned to me, his face soft. "I'm glad you slept, babe. You didn't get much sleep last night, and you know what the doctor said. He wants you getting at least ten hours of sleep each day."

"I think I get ten hours of sleep, whether I want it or not."

"The best guess I have is that you only got about seven hours last night, so I'm not surprised that you need another hour or two during the day to top you up. You know as well as I know that you need a lot of sleep normally. Being pregnant isn't going to help." He glanced at the time. "We're five minutes early."

"So that makes us five minutes late in your books?" I said with a smile. Ranger was someone who was not only punctual, but was typically ten minutes early for everything. His mother had told me that he had been delivered two weeks early, and he'd been early for everything ever since. Sometimes the practice was annoying, but I found it nice to be on time for things. I was typically someone who was late, and I was even later when I was working with Lula. While I was at most five minutes late for things, Lula was often an hour or more and working with her was sometimes frustrating. I had learned of her attitude towards time management, however, and for the sake of friendship harmony I had gotten into the habit of giving Lula a time that was an hour before the time that we were typically scheduled to leave just so that we would be on time when we got there. It was a habit that was working for me.

Ranger's lips quirked up in a smile. "Smartass", he said.

I laughed and got out of the car. Ranger and I walked into the station. Ranger carried my bag that contained all my files for me, and held my hand. However, when we got into the station he let my hand go and morphed from boyfriend into boss. I was always amazed at how he could do it so seamlessly, but was always glad that he could. It gave what I had to say more teeth, and people respected what I had to say better when they looked at me as a researcher than they did when they looked at me as Ranger's girlfriend.

Ranger announced us at the reception desk and before long we were waiting in a conference room for the officer in charge of the investigation. We sat down at the conference table, and I pulled my files from my bag.

The police woman walked in a few minutes later, introduced herself as Dawn, and shook our hands. "You are a hard person to get information on", she said to Ranger. "Since I started working with you, I have had someone looking into your background to verify your story. We have come up with nothing. There is even very little information on Rangeman. To all intents and purposes, you barely exist."

Ranger smiled and the officer sucked in a breath. I could understand her reaction. Ranger, with his intent look and focused attention, was hot. Smiling-Ranger redefined the word. His smile was a lethal weapon that he used infrequently but always with similar reactions. While men usually just smiled back, women would invariably fall over themselves to do whatever it was that Ranger wanted them to do.

"Since we are in security", said Ranger, "and since we work for a number of people who would prefer that we didn't exist, we purposely try to keep a low profile."

The policewoman regained her footing. "It is only because of the TPD's endorsement that we are working with you."

"I understand", said Ranger.

"What does Rangeman do?" asked the policewoman.

"We are a full-service security company that does everything from system design to installation to monitoring. We have a cybersecurity department that works to protect clients' technological assets, and we have a personal security department that provides bodyguarding services. We train and oversee security guards that work at a number of locations. Basically, we do anything that involves security issues."

"Who are your clients?"

"I'm sorry, but that information if confidential", said Ranger with an easy smile. "That is something that I promise my clients."

"So if I got you up on the stand?"

"Since that information is confidential and not relevant to the conversation, I would hope that you didn't ask it."

The policewoman stared at Ranger for a few seconds. He smiled at her, but I noticed that his smile was a little less brilliant and a lot more forced. It didn't reach his eyes like it did with me.

"Okay, so you've had someone working at the Manoso restaurant for the last week?"

"No, there was someone working at the restaurant on Tuesday and half of Wednesday. Raphael followed the meat from the minute it arrived to the restaurant through to the moment it appeared at the table, and there was no point in the process that the meat could have been contaminated. Despite that, two people were poisoned that evening. The health inspector has been investigating, and the restaurant has closed its doors until further notice. They are afraid to serve food that could potentially make people sick. There have been eight people poisoned in their restaurant in the last month. When we determined that the poisoning wasn't occurring at the restaurant, we pulled Raphael from the investigation."

"Is he certain that the poisoning didn't happen to the meat prior to his investigation starting?"

"Manoso's, to stop the chance of contaminated meat being served, gets fresh meat delivered every day. No meat is currently being served that had been delivered the day before."

"Isn't that expensive for the restaurant?"

"Yes, but the Manoso owners didn't want to take the chance that any of their patrons were given food poisoning."

"Is it true that Manoso's owns part of Nature-Fresh?"

"Yes, they own part of many of their suppliers. They like keeping the money in the family, and by owning part of their suppliers they had found that they are able to get preferred pricing from the supplier. Therefore, those investments are profitable for Manoso's as well as allowing them to reduce their costs, a practice that they can pass on to the patrons of the restaurant."

"It is a great spot to eat", said the policewoman, "and is surprisingly affordable."

"Manoso's is in a contract with Nature-Fresh that doesn't allow them to purchase meat from any other abattoir. Otherwise they would have simply switched suppliers and hoped that the meat wasn't contaminated any longer."

"The health inspectors have been looking at the food that has been brought in, and the food from other suppliers seems to be safe."

"The sanctity of the food is paramount, so I am glad that the health inspectors have been looking into all the incoming food. Like you, I have heard that the tampering has been contained to the meat."

"You have an investigator at the abattoir as well, don't you?"

"Yes. Cal has been working there since Tuesday. Unlike with Raphael, he has been unable to follow the meat through from the moment it arrives as a cow to the moment it is packaged as meat suitable for cooking, simply because there are so many cows. While Nature-Fresh is a small slaughterhouse, it still processes over one hundred cows per day. While they focus on food safety, it is fairly easy for fecal matter to contaminate the meat during processing. I was thinking of adding Raphael to the staff roster to try to help Cal investigate the process and to try to identify the source of contamination."

"I would prefer to put an officer in undercover", said the policewoman.

Ranger looked at her and nodded. "It's your investigation. Let us know who the person is, and I'll pass that information on to Cal so that he can work directly with your officer."

"How many staff work at Nature-Fresh?"

"Cal said that it's a large staff. Steph, do you know how many staff work there?"

"Approximately eighty", I said.

The policewoman turned to me. "You are Rangeman's researcher?"

I smiled. "I'm the manager of the Research department at Rangeman."

"I received your report on each of the abattoir's employees. How did you get so much information on them?"

"Rangeman has an in-house designed search engine that is incredibly invasive and brings up information ranging from medical to financial to social. If the information is out there, In-Spect can find it. In some cases, it simply identifies where the information can be found. In other cases, it identifies the information itself. Another researcher and I ran all the Nature-Fresh employees' names through the system."

"Did you find any people of interest?"

"We found three that were of interest. Two, Barry Zeiberman and Robert Buckley, work at Nature-Fresh. Barry is part-owner of another abattoir, a company that threatened Manoso's about a month ago. The rival abattoir, Abateur, is facing bankruptcy and Manoso's contract would help them reestablish themselves financially. Barry is very vocal in his hatred of Nature-Fresh. Robert Buckley is his former lover and helped Barry get the job at Nature-Fresh. Barry started a month ago, just about the time that Manoso's started having problems. Shortly after Barry started at Nature-Fresh, he and Robert broke up. Robert is very upset about the split but, to all intents and purposes, Barry has barely broken a sweat over the issue.

"In the spirit of dotting all our I's and crossing all our T's, Miguel and I have been investigating each of the employees from all of Manoso's suppliers. There was one name in particular that stood out to us – Karen Buckley. Upon further investigation, we discovered that she was the sister of Robert Buckley. According to social media, they have a close relationship.

"Interestingly, Karen has an illustrious past. She has been arrested four times for stalking and has had restraining orders placed upon her. Out of the four people that she had stalked – all of whom didn't express an interest in her – three had been poisoned. One of those people died. The other two didn't die but did become quite sick. She was never arrested, nor was there any connection made between Karen herself and the poisonings."

"We looked into it ourselves after you drew the connection", said the policewoman, "and we couldn't find anything about the people other than the fact that they had requested restraining orders."

I opened Karen's file and passed the policewoman a copy of the sheaf of papers. The file was quite thick. "Using In-Spect, we were able to identify the four people who were issued restraining orders and, when we did, Miguel and I ran the names of those four people through the system. I know that we sent that information through to you through email, but since there is nothing like seeing it in hard copy in front of you, I copied off the file for you. Have you already had a chance to review it?"

"I had. What I don't understand is how you got all this information. Without your help, we would never have been able to trace the connection."

"As I said", I smiled, "In-Spect, our in-house search engine, is incredibly invasive. I know that I ran my own name through the system once and was shocked at the information that the search engine was able to pull up. I learned things about myself that even I didn't know."

The policewoman smiled and then turned back to Ranger. "Has your man – Cal, was it? – been able to find out anything while doing his investigation?"

"It is pretty slow going. There are a number of employees, as we have already discussed", said Ranger, "and no one is happy with management. Workers are traditionally underpaid and overworked and staff morale is terrible. Cal hasn't found anyone that is happy with the company and their employment."

"Okay. We'll get a couple of officers added to the staff roster, and hopefully with Cal's help we'll be able to find out something."

"Stephanie suggested that perhaps you would like to have someone audit their books. From what she could tell, Nature-Fresh was charging double the going rate to Manoso's because of 'providing' organic meat, and that would make sense if the meat was actually organic. However, Stephanie was able to contact many of the farmers who supply Nature-Fresh with their cattle, and not one of them raise cattle organically. Nature-Fresh seems to be committing fraud and I believe that issue needs to be addressed."

"We will look into it. Do you have that information for me as well?"

I passed over my report. "I wrote up my findings for you, complete with names and contact information for each of the farmers."

"That will be enough for me to ask for a warrant", said the policewoman as she reviewed the information. She turned back to Ranger. "You've been at this a long time, if the TPD is to be believed. What is your take on what has been happening? What do you think has occurred?"

"I think it is too soon to create a hypothesis", said Ranger. "However, although we are still running the rest of the names through the system, I think we have identified the key players. We just have to now line the ducks up in order to figure out what is going on."

The policewoman nodded. "Okay, so what I understand is that there are two cases that are occurring. For the first case, the fraud case, we'll get a warrant to audit the books and will retrace your steps to make sure that there isn't any organic meat being purchased by the abattoir. For the food tampering case, we'll install a couple more officers to work undercover at the abattoir to work the angle from that end. Hopefully we will be able to identify the method of poisoning that is occurring. While we are doing that, you'll continue working through the list of people that are employed by all the Manoso suppliers."

"I don't anticipate that there will be any other people that spring up as persons of interest."

"I don't either, but it is a good thing for us to do."

"I understand."

"Why do you think that Manoso's is in particular being targeted? After all, the abattoir is responsible for supplying meat to a variety of locations and end users."

"I don't know", said Ranger. I looked at him, and he looked frustrated.

"I think", I said, "if I may jump in, that Manoso's is a part-owner of the company and that makes them different from the other people who buy Nature-Fresh meat. So assuming – and it is still a very big assumption – that Abateur is targeting Manoso's because they want their business, they are also targeting Manoso's because they are angry at Nature-Fresh and are wanting to take all the owners of Nature-Fresh down. I have looked into the other owners of Nature-Fresh – ones that own a significant portion of stock of five percent or above – and Manoso's is one of the largest stock owners. However, out of the other stockowners, three owners have establishments that have suffered from food poisoning. I have included that information in this report", I said as I handed over another sheaf of papers. "I just finished that work prior to leaving for this meeting, so you are the first person to see this. Even Ranger hasn't seen this information yet." I handed another copy of the file to Ranger, and he started flipping through it.

Dawn looked the information over at the same time as Ranger reviewed it. "Again, this is information that we might not have been able to pull up as quickly or as thoroughly as you have." She looked up with a smile. "Do you have any other reports that you want to drop on me before this meeting is concluded?"

I laughed and Ranger smiled. "I think that's it", I said. "I can look into each of the owners further if you would like. At this point, the information is quite cursory and would need further investigation to flesh out the relationships and timelines."

"If you want us to look into it further, we can", said Ranger. "However, this would be information that would be easier for an officer from your department to obtain. While we are good at doing the background computer work, it is sometimes helpful to have the legitimacy of a badge when people are being questioned."

The policewoman nodded. "Okay, I'll review this information. If you can both finish doing the computer work and reviewing the other employees from the other suppliers as well as delving as deep as you can into the other owners, we'd appreciate it. I can't say that I understand how your search engine works, but I'm glad it does."

"I hope to have final analysis on the different employees done by early next week, and a summary report prepared for you by Wednesday", I said.

"Thank you. Your help has been invaluable on this case." She stood and shook our hands. "Before you go, I know that our police chief wanted to talk to you. If you wouldn't mind sticking around a few minutes more?"

Ranger smiled. "We don't mind at all."


	20. Chapter 20

Dawn got us each a bottle of water and, a few minutes later, the police chief, Janet, walked into the room and introduced herself. She shook our hands and sat down as the rest of the officers all left the room and went back to work. "I have been talking to the police chief at the TPD", she said, "and Neil was singing your praises. He told me about your Emergency Response Teams and how well trained you are, but perhaps what is more interesting to me is the research work that you are able to do. He said that he pays a retainer to you for the option of having you do some research work for them and then, when they have a job for you to do, they pay you by the hour for that job."

"That's correct", said Ranger.

"I have seen the work that you have done for Dawn", said the chief, "and your research is top-notch. I asked my own research department to pull up information on the same people that you identified as being persons of interest, and it took us a long time to come up with much less information than you were able to pull together in a fraction of the time."

"Our search engine that we designed in house", said Ranger, "is incredibly effective. It takes, on average, half an hour per person for a cursory search. And in-depth search can take several hours by the time our researcher goes down all the rabbit holes and puts together the nuggets of information they are able to glean. However, the end product is far more comprehensive than one would be able to get using standard search engines."

"We would like the same deal that the TPD has with you. I don't know what the TPD pays as a retainer, but I'm sure we could come to some sort of agreement. Neil told me what he pays per hour, and we'd be able to meet that hourly rate as well. Would that be something that you would consider?"

"Absolutely. While our search engine is thorough, our researchers are impressive and able to find all sorts of things about a variety of people. They are particularly stubborn", said Ranger as I made a face and he laughed at me, "and won't give up until they have wrestled every little bit of information from the system. If the search engine or our researchers can't find anything, it likely isn't there to be found."

"How do you go about this?" said Janet.

"What Rangeman requires is for you to select someone within your organization that would be a good liaison with Rangeman. All information requests would come from that person. This helps siphon the information through and works as a triage system so that the most important research jobs are identified as being a priority. Additionally, this will keep your budget transparent as there will be one person who is knowledgeable about how much our services are being used. On our side, it stops the potential of someone masquerading as a Newark police officer and asking for information when the information has not been requested by your division."

"That makes sense."

"The retainer that we'll charge you will be commensurate with the size of your force. Trenton is a much smaller city, less than a third of the size, and as such the retainer for your division will be greater than that paid by the TPD. It covers the cost of hiring enough researchers so that we have the manpower to fulfill your requests, as well as an additional cost that we use to revamp the search engines we use to ensure they are as efficient and as effective as they can be. We developed the software about five years ago, but every year or two we revisit the program and tweak it to reduce the amount of time that each search takes to complete. That retainer is a fixed cost and will be charged monthly whether our services are used or not. However, the hourly rate reflects our staff salaries and will remain the same as what we charge the TPD. Do you anticipate many research requests?"

"I suspect we'll have about a research request a week", said Janet. "I will suggest to staff that they look for information themselves first and, if they can't find any leads, they then take the research request to you."

"That's the way the TPD does it as well. They tend to use us when there is a media-sensitive issue, or they just are hitting dead ends themselves. However, I needed an estimate because we are now working at capacity and are looking at having to hire another staff member. With your research requests, it sounds like hiring another staff member is something we should consider doing sooner rather than later."

"We'll try not to be too demanding of your time, but we'd appreciate having you in our back pocket."

"I understand."

"What kind of retainer do you anticipate that you'll charge?"

"I have to work that out with our Chief Financial Officer and will have to get back to you. I'll write up a formal proposal for you that will outline our annual retainer as well as our hourly rate and what we charge for incidentals."

"Who is paying you for the work that you are currently doing on this case?"

"I don't know if you know this, but Manoso's is owned by my parents, my sister manages the place and my brother-in-law is the head chef. I'm doing this for my family and am absorbing the costs."

"Keep a log as to how many hours you spent on the search, and we'll halve the cost with you."

"Thank you, but that's not necessary."

"How many hours has your staff spent on this?"

Ranger turned to me. "Miguel and I have each spent about twenty-five to thirty hours on this", I said.

Ranger turned back to the chief. "Additionally, we had a staff member on site at Manoso's for a day and a half, including the time he spent with the health inspector, and we've had a staff member at Nature-Fresh for the last four days."

"That shouldn't be time that you have to absorb the cost on. Additionally, if we can pay you we can say that you were consulting with us and helping out in our investigation. That will make it seem less like you are vigilantes when you are up on the stand during the trial."

"That's true."

"Send the bill to me directly, and I'll make sure that you are paid."

"Thank you. I know that, at a time when police budgets are being cut, this is a huge gesture of yours."

Janet smiled.

"We'll have to do a full vetting of your company in order to hire you", said Janet.

"That won't be a problem, but there is very little information – on purpose – about us. If there is something in particular that you want to know, you might have to ask us directly."

"Who are your clients?"

"We have a range of both private clients as well as a number of governmental agencies that use our services. I'm sorry, but I'm not at liberty to give you more details than that. The clients we have value their privacy and prefer not to have their relationship with us advertised."

Janet laughed. "Are all your clients legal?"

Ranger smiled. "Yes, they are. There are a lot of potential clients out there. We thoroughly research all our clients before we sign them on. As I said, we have a number of clients who are governmental in nature and, as such, we want to run as clean a shop as we can to ensure that we remain attractive to all our clients. Simply put, if we aren't clean then some of our clients wouldn't be interested in working or wouldn't be allowed to work with us."

"That makes sense. What do you do?"

"We're a full-service security company that provides services ranging from hardware to software, patrol and monitoring, and research and cybersecurity. We have a personal security department that provides bodyguards to local and visiting dignitaries, and an onsite security department that provides trained security guards to various organizations. We currently have about one hundred and eighty-five people on staff, but we are growing rapidly and expect that number to be just over two hundred by the start of the new year and well over four hundred by the end of the next."

"The start of the new year is only two weeks away."

"I know."

"Do you have an investigative department?"

"Not yet, but that is something we have been considering and the person who is currently onsite at Nature-Fresh has his degree in Criminology and would be an excellent person to head up the department."

"Dawn said that she had done a computer search on you, and she found no information."

Ranger smiled. "It's hard to find. I purposely have taken myself off the grid so that people can't track me."

"Why?"

Ranger looked at the police chief, obviously analyzing her and her ability to keep a secret. Finally, he said, "I worked for the government for many years, during which time I undertook many dangerous missions. The government scrubbed my name from any association with those missions, like they did for the rest of my teammates, in an effort to protect us from the fallout. I have since kept a low profile and have, as best as I can, become a ghost."

"What will you do when you have to go on the stand to talk about the work that Rangeman has done?"

"What we worked out with the TPD was that the person who actually did the work would be the person who went on the stand. Take, for example, this case. Stephanie, Cal and Raphael would be the people going up on the stand. Not me. I would require the same sort of agreement with the Newark police division."

"That works for me."

"Do you have any more questions?"

"Not at this time. I wanted to meet you personally as I get a good feel for a person by how they conduct themselves face-to-face."

"Did I conduct myself appropriately?" said Ranger as he smiled.

Ranger's smile did it again. It really was a lethal weapon. Janet grinned. "Ooh, yeah", she said. I shook my head with a sigh. Janet looked like she was old enough to be Ranger's mother.

We stood and shook her hand. "I'll get that proposal out to you on Monday", said Ranger, "and if you agree to it we can draw up a contract from there."

"Thanks a lot", said Janet. "I look forward to having you join our team."

Ranger held my coat for me so that I could put it on, and he picked up my satchel and carried it out of the building. As we went, I could hear at least four women sigh as we walked by.

And he hadn't even had to use his smile on them.


	21. Chapter 21

We got in the car and, when the doors were shut and we were on our way, Ranger lifted my hand and kissed my fingers. "It looks like you'll be gaining another employee", he said. "I'd rather have someone who was interested in doing captures help you do research, and if it was someone who was used to doing patrol they would have a good feel for that side of the business as well. I was thinking, at first, the person could do part-time patrol and part-time research much like Miguel and, when you are off on mat leave, have the person do full-time research while Miguel continues to split his days. I think if we took him off patrol permanently for the four months of your mat leave he would revolt."

I smiled. "I don't know. He's good about taking one for the team."

Ranger thought about smiling. I could tell that he was thinking about when he offered to take one for the team and take me bra shopping and I snorted out a chuckle and shook my head.

Ranger grinned, and said, "do you have any suggestions of people currently on patrol who would be a good to do research?"

I thought for a moment. "You know Dirk? He does patrol and monitoring. Before he joined the Marines, he went to college and got his degree in accounting. He said that he had wanted to be a forensic accountant, but he needed to get his chartered accountancy designation first. I asked him if he was bored doing patrol and monitoring and he said that, after what he saw overseas, he needed a little boredom in his life. But he seems like a good guy and at the risk of putting too much pressure on him, he would be a good person to have on staff doing searches. It also would be boring for him, but we could use his expertise when looking into the financials of a company or a private individual. I had been teasing him at the time and told him that we'd bring him on the research staff if he wasn't careful, and he had told me that any time I needed help he'd be willing to look at some numbers for me. Miguel gets along with him well as well, and I know that they have gone out for meals together in the past. I honestly think that, if we don't use him more effectively, we'll lose him as an employee and personally I think he is too valuable a team member and too well-liked to want to take the chance that we lose him."

"I agree. He's a good guy who has done a good job in his position. I will talk to Miguel about it tomorrow and, assuming that he too gives me the green light, I will talk to Dirk about it."

"I was thinking of making a template to fill out for capture plans. I basically follow one myself, but I was thinking of asking Leo to help me formalize one to keep on the server." Leo was the head of the Cybersecurity department and, although creating forms wasn't something that was in his responsibilities, I knew that it wouldn't take longer than a few minutes for him to do and, since I had a good working relationship with him, I knew that he wouldn't mind doing it for me. "I think it would make it easier for Miguel and Dirk when they are devising capture plans."

"That's true. You would have the best idea as to what should go on that template."

"I was thinking that it could be a fillable PDF, sort of like they have for government forms now. Then, when we go to save the file, it immediately recognizes that it is a template and the name needs to be changed before it can be saved. That should be possible, shouldn't it?"

"I think that's a question for Leo", said Ranger.

He pulled into a residential street and, soon afterward, pulled up to a detached house. The snow had been recently shoveled and a lopsided snowman graced the front yard. "Who are we visiting?" I said.

Ranger smiled. "I texted Elena, and my parents and grandmother are over. I thought that I would go over everything that we have found out at this point, and let them know the next steps that we are taking."

He turned off the car and got out, and walked around the car to shut the door of the car for me. He locked it before walking hand-in-hand with me up to the front door.

Here's the thing with Ranger. He liked holding hands. A lot. For someone who was so closed off and private, he was remarkably demonstrative with me. He liked touching me, and often had a hand on my leg or an arm around my shoulders if we were sitting, or was holding my hand or had an arm around my waist if we were standing. I had never been a demonstrative sort of person before, and as far as demonstrations went it was more indicative of a gentle joining rather than an in-your-face statement. However, I found the contact to be equally as comforting for me as I imagined it was for Ranger. It was a constant reminder that he was there for me, that he was supporting me, and that he loved me. I wouldn't have liked it if he was all kissy with me in front of others, but I did like holding hands with him. It was a way of showing the world that we were united and that we were a team.

So when Ranger was holding my hand as we walked to the door? That was just him providing comfort to me, and I loved every minute of it.

Ranger knocked on the front door. It was quickly opened by Cecelia, Ranger's only niece and the youngest in Elena's and William's family. "Uncle Ricky", she yelled, and she barreled into us and captured Ranger on his knees as she gave him a ferocious hug. She turned to me and hugged me just as tightly. "Guess what?"

"What's that, squirt?" said Ranger. He smiled at her, and I was again hit by my belief that Ranger was going to make an excellent father.

Cecelia grinned. "I went and sat on Santa's knee, and he told me that I'd been a good girl this year. He said that he'll put something special under the tree for me."

"That's great! You must have been a very good girl this year for Santa to have said that."

"Want to hear a secret?"

Ranger finished taking off his boots and steadied me while I took off my own, and he took my coat and laid it across the banister. "Always", he said.

"I saw an elf last night watching to make sure I ate all my peas. I don't like peas, but the elf was watching, ready to report back to Santa as to what I was doing."

"Then I guess that it's a good thing that you ate all your peas."

"Uh-hunh. Elsie's mother said there is no such thing as Santa Claus, but if that were true how do the presents get under the tree?"

"I don't know. I think it's a perfect example of a Christmas miracle."

"We need a Christmas miracle", said his sister as she came through from the kitchen drying her hands on a tea towel. "Are you back from meeting with the police?"

"Yes", said Ranger.

"What did they say?" She looked worried. "Cecelia, please go clean your room."

"My room is already clean. You told me to do it when Granny and Grandpa and Grandma Rosa came in."

"Then go read a book. You are supposed to read fifteen minutes a day as homework for school."

"I'm supposed to read to you for fifteen minutes a day", said Cecelia.

"Then go practice reading so that you are prepared when I come up to do our reading time together."

"I want to stay. Maybe Uncle Ricky will give me a horsey ride."

"I won't give you one if you don't do as your mother asked", said Ranger, "and I know that Santa's elves are watching and will report back that you didn't do what you were supposed to as well."

"I'll just go read", said Cecelia.

She turned around and ran upstairs, and Elena smiled. "It's hard at this time of the year. The kids are so excited and not sleeping properly, and are poorly behaved because of it. However, at the same time, they are trying so hard to do the right thing since they think that Santa is watching."

I laughed. I had seen the same thing with my nieces.

"Did you hear that Steph's grandmother was on the news?" said Ranger.

I groaned.

"No!" said Elena. She led us to the kitchen table, where everyone was sitting. "Was everyone okay?"

"Definitely", I said. "My sister and I decided that we'd take a picture of us on Santa's knee as a joke gift this year, and we took my grandmother to look after the babies while our picture was being taken. When we got there, however, about fifteen black Santas stormed the display and protested the fact that there was a discriminatory requirement for all Santas to be Caucasian. My grandmother thought protesting looked fun, so she jumped up and joined in, and yelled out that there should be black Santas, there should be female Santas, and there should be teenagers allowed to be Santa. The security guards came to break up the protest, the black Santas all ran, and my grandmother was left holding the megaphone." Ranger's family all laughed. "Oh, no. Don't laugh – it gets worse. So the security guard tries to take my grandmother into custody, at which point my grandmother decides she doesn't want to go into custody, and she jumps out of the way and breaks off a candy cane to use as a bat to keep the security guard at bay."

"I remember seeing that on the news", said Grandma Rosa.

"I think everybody saw it on the news. My mother had received eleven calls about it before the news clip was over."

"So what happened?" asked Ranger's mother.

"I let Grandma have her fun for a couple of minutes but, when I saw the situation starting to explode in our faces, I told the security guards that we would come with them as long as we could pick up our picture first. It all worked out well. While the picture was being printed off, my grandmother got her chance to sit on Santa's knee and Santa asked her out on a date, so she was happy. We went to the security office and my sister got a chance to feed my six-week old nephew Edmund and my grandmother and I fed a snack to the two toddlers, so the babies and my sister were happy. And we weren't charged or arrested, so I was happy."

"Was there any fallout from the news story?" said Ranger's dad.

I smiled. "My grandmother has been asked to do a recording of 'hell, no. We won't wear bells; we won't be elves'. There is a group of a few music executives that want to turn it into a song, much like that song that went viral several years ago. You know, the one where the woman was saying 'ain't nobody got time for that' when she was interviewed after she escaped a burning building? They want to turn my grandmother into a song. My grandmother is ecstatic and said that she has always wanted to be a rock star."

"Good for her", said Grandma Rosa. "Hopefully it will bring her lots of money."

"I don't know if she cares if it brings her money", I said. "I think she just wants the notoriety for when she goes to the hair salon. She feels the release of the song will make her so famous that the salon will do her hair for free."

"There is always something good in everything", said Ranger.

Elena poured Ranger a coffee, and asked me whether I would like a yogurt drink or a glass of juice. I looked at her. "A yogurt drink is much like a smoothie", said Elena.

I smiled and asked for the yogurt drink and, as I took a sip, I decided that I had just found a new favorite. It was peach in flavor, and it was excellent.

Ranger took a sip of his coffee, and then looked around at all the anxious adults. He told them what we had found out, the people that we were investigating without mentioning names or particulars. "I need you to stay far away from the company while the investigation is taking place", said Ranger. "I need your agreement to that." Each of the adults agreed, and I thought that it was a good thing that it wasn't my grandmother sitting there. I would have had to check to make sure her fingers weren't crossed when she was promising.

He told them of the fraud case and what the police were doing about it. Ranger's mother started to cry, and Elena slammed her cup down on the table. "Do you mean that they were charging us over double what they were charging everyone else, but not delivering the product that they had promised?"

"Yes", said Ranger. "When the dust has settled on the criminal case, you might want to both sell your shares in the company as well as to bring a civil case against them for the impacts that their fraud has made to the company."

"We had an offer to buy our shares in the company a few weeks ago", said Ranger's father. "We thought it was a bad idea since we thought we were getting preferred pricing, and we knew our meat bill was high and we didn't want it to go any higher."

"You were getting preferred pricing", I said. "If I am reading the files right, you are paying over double what everyone else is paying."

"So should we go ahead and try to find another supplier?" said Elena. "We have that contract with Nature-Fresh, but if they are committing fraud, surely that would negate the contract?"

"I don't know", said Ranger. "I would talk to a lawyer, if I was you. In the meantime, however, I would suggest that you don't do anything. Stop ordering food; stop taking in patrons; stop everything. Whatever you do, don't change anything with Nature-Fresh. Don't even talk to Nature-Fresh. You don't want to alert them to the fact that an investigation is going on."

"What did you find when you were at Nature-Fresh?" asked Ranger's father.

"They are not a good company", said Ranger. "Pay is low, morale is dismal, and business practices are unethical."

Ranger's father looked down at the table. "I'm ashamed that we are part-owners of this company. I think, when the dust settles, that we should get Rangeman to do a review of all our suppliers. I don't want to take the chance that other companies are unethical as well."

"That is an idea", said Ranger. "I think that it would also be a good idea for you to review all future purchases prior to buying them. Due diligence is important."

Ranger's dad sighed. "Okay." He paused, his face falling. "We've been very naïve, haven't we? I mean, all I keep thinking is how stupid we've been. You have told us to be careful in the past, and I thought that you were just being overanxious about something that didn't need it."

"No, Papa", said Ranger. "You haven't been stupid. Most people don't think like a criminal and, because of that, they are ripe for becoming victims. That is not your fault. That is solely the fault of the people taking advantage of you."

"This would never have happened to you", said William.

"I have made it my career to think like a criminal", said Ranger. "My whole job is figuring out weaknesses in people's security. Would I have done my due diligence before I signed with any of these companies? Yes, I would. But that's my area of specialty. Just like you would think to make sure the temperature of the freezer was set correctly, I would think of doing due diligence. My guess is that all of the other companies in which you are a part-owner are fine, but we will look into them just in case. Steph is already doing much of that work for the Newark police. There will be little that needs to be done after the dust settles to finish doing that due diligence. However, we can do that work for you."

"What will happen now with Nature-Fresh?" said Ranger's mother.

"There still needs to be more of an investigation into the plant. They have not yet been able to identify the method that the meat is being contaminated, but it seems to be contamination that is centered on only the meat that the owners of the slaughterhouse is receiving. This means that the contamination is probably happening at the trucking end. The police will have someone go undercover in the distribution department. Once the method of contamination has been addressed, the owners of the company will be charged with fraud, and the people responsible will be charged for their role in contaminating the food. I went for a tour of the facility yesterday, and I told them that I would have a staff member come and do some subsequent observations. I thought that they would be able to focus on the trucking practices. Mike, one of my system designers, and myself are in the process of coming up with a security system. Mike was working on that today, and I'll be reviewing that work this weekend."

"What will happen to us?" said Grandma Rosa. "After all, we are part owners of the facility. Does that mean that we will be charged with fraud?"

"I don't know how this will work", said Ranger, "but what I do know is that the police know that you have been the driving impetus behind the investigation into the abattoir's practices. They know that you have been providing a lot of the information that they are using in their investigation, and the judge will take that into consideration."

"How long will we need to have the restaurant closed?" said Elena. "We have had to cancel several Christmas parties, and New Year's is a big night for us."

"I know that, El. Everyone is trying to move this investigation along as quickly as we can. I would talk to a lawyer first to see what he or she would recommend for your next steps, and then I would talk to the police. Officer Dawn Sheridan is the person that we've been dealing with. I'll text the contact information to you."

"How do you think we should handle the cancelled Christmas parties?" said Ranger's father. "We were just discussing it when you arrived."

"I think", said Ranger, "that you should explain to the people doing the bookings what has gone on, and tell them that you will charge them half price meals if they would agree to reschedule their party in the new year. Plan on your reopening to be on New Year's Eve, and enjoy the next couple of weeks off. It's been a long time since you've taken a holiday from the restaurant. Try not to worry. The police and I have it well in hand. In the meantime, talk to your lawyer about the ability to find another supplier and plan on working with a new supplier for the New Year's bash. We will continue to investigate the various players at our end and will hopefully identify the method of transmission for the pathogen."

"Okay", said Elena.

Cecelia came running into the kitchen waving her book around. "What's this word, Mommy?" she said.

The tension in the room lifted and Elena pulled her daughter up on her knee. She looked at the book. "Tomorrow", she said. "That's the word."

"Thank you, Mommy."

William looked around the room. "Would everybody like to stay for dinner? There are lots. I made cabbage rolls."

Ranger looked at the sudden paleness of my skin and smiled. He knew how much I hated cabbage rolls. My mother made them on a regular basis when I was growing up, and I didn't hate them any less now than I did then. It was the only meal that my mother made – other than liver – that I didn't like. I would sit there for hours with the food in front of me, refusing to eat it, and no amount of bribery dessert would force me to swallow it. My grandmother used to tell me that starving children in Africa would have liked the food. She stopped saying that the day I brought a booklet of stamps to the table and told my mother that I needed a small cardboard box so that I could mail it to the children.

"No, but thank you for the offer", said Ranger. "Steph and I still have a ton of work to do on the case, and the Newark police need the answers sooner rather than later."

Did I mention that Ranger was my hero?


	22. Chapter 22

We hit traffic on the way back to Trenton, and by the time we got there it was dinnertime. I woke up again as Ranger pulled into the parking garage, and as he parked the car I visually assessed my own for a moment before I remembered that we were in Rangeman's parking garage. When I was living in my apartment, parking was in the open and it was common for me to come out to my car to find it spray painted with crude messages or with flat tires or with disturbing presents left inside. My favorite was when my car had been firebombed while I was gone. Unfortunately that had happened more than once. As a result, I had developed the habit of assessing my car whenever I got close to it. I wondered if I would ever grow out of the practice.

However, with parking my car in the Rangeman parking garage, the area was secure and no one was able to get into the garage to vandalize my car. It was reassuring to not have to worry about the safety of my car when I got into it.

Ranger parked in one of his four dedicated spots. He had three cars – the Porsche Turbo 911 that he drove during the summer when he didn't need room in the backseat, the Porsche Cayenne that we were currently driving, and a Tacoma truck that he used when we were going into the Barrens or otherwise had the potential of needing to do some off-roading. The fourth spot he had earmarked for the muscle car that he had always wanted, but in the meantime had been commandeered by me. I had never asked Ranger whether that was okay with him, but since he had never complained I guessed that he had accepted it.

I was currently driving a fleet car that Ranger had dedicated for my use. He had told me that, in about another four months, he would buy a family car to be used when we were transporting the baby so that we could leave the car seat in it permanently. The fleet car he would still dedicate for my use, but it would be used when I was picking up skips. Since he planned on getting rid of the Turbo 911 in the spring and just driving the Cayenne for those times when he didn't need the functionality of the truck, he would be down to two vehicles and the other two parking spots would be for the family car and my work car. He also said that, when the new tower was built for the residences, there would be three parking spots dedicated for our use. One would be for his dreamed-about muscle car, one would be for the family car, and the third would be for the nanny's car. The work vehicles we would leave below the office tower.

"I never asked you", I said as we walked into the elevator and punched the button for the seventh floor. "I was wondering about Dave's background. How did he get hired into the role? I know that he is relatively new to the company."

"He is. I hired him just nine months ago when I decided I no longer had time to head the department. Dave is a former Marine who did one tour and, when he was finished, applied for the Secret Service. He worked in the Secret Service for twelve years before deciding to settle down here in Trenton. He grew up here and when his parents needed more support than he could provide while working in Washington, he applied to our company and made the move to the area. He had, in fact, originally applied for a security guard job but when Sebastian, our onsite security manager, saw his resume, he brought it to my attention as someone who would be suitable in a more managerial role. I've been happy with my choice."

"He seems like a good guy, a solid guy."

"He is. He has been a good addition to the staff."

We got to the apartment and Ranger unlocked the door and opened it. He helped me out of my coat and I stuffed my scarf in the sleeve so that I wouldn't lose it. I had a matching hat, but I never wore it. It tended to mess with my hair and I hated having hat head. My mother and grandmother were constantly telling me that I would be much warmer if I wore a hat and that ten percent of body heat is lost through your head. Personally, I'd rather shiver.

The house smelled of cheesy goodness. Ranger had called Ella on the way and told her that we'd be home in an hour, and I was looking forward to dinner. I was starving and I wondered what Ella had made. I told Ranger that, and he smiled. "I think this is the first time that you have been truly hungry in a long time."

I paused. Ranger was right. It had been over a month since I had been as hungry as I was right then, and I rather thought, judging by the level of hunger I felt, that maybe my stomach was making up for lost time.

Ranger and I washed our hands and Ranger removed the casserole from the warming drawer and placed it on a trivet on the breakfast bar. I poured us each a glass of milk and put out cutlery and plates while Ranger got a tossed salad from the fridge with our favorite dressings. Seconds later, we were sitting at our spots at the bar and dishing up our dinners. Ella had made a good dinner, with spaghetti and red sauce on the bottom level of the casserole dish, topped with chicken breasts, topped with a thick layer of cheese. I ate a small helping and, when that sat well, I helped myself to another. I also had three small helpings of salad, but when Ranger asked me whether I would like a banana smoothie for dessert, I had to decline. The food was starting to rock and roll in my stomach and I didn't want to stress it further. "Perhaps you would like one for a bedtime snack", said Ranger with a smile. "I'm happy that you ate as much as you did. Even though you still didn't eat as much as you would normally have eaten in one sitting, you still ate more than you have eaten in weeks. I think you can safely say that the morning sickness is starting to abate." I made a face. "Don't you agree?"

I grimaced again. "Ask me when my stomach has settled again", I said.

"Babe", said Ranger in sympathy.

We wandered into the office, and I sat on the sofa with my feet up and put my laptop on my lap. I started to research more names and, by the time we were ready for bed four hours later, I was bone tired – and ten names further done. I had reviewed the names that Miguel had completed and thought that we were well on the way to getting the list finished by the end of Monday. I had the names for four more suppliers to go, and Miguel had names for two. Miguel had sent a note saying that he had a house that his parents were coming up to see the next day, but that he'd be available to work on his remaining two companies on Sunday.

"How goes the research?" said Ranger.

"Good", I said. I told him how much we were done and how much we had left to do. "I figure that I'll be able to do one company on each day of the weekend, and on Monday do two. This makes sense, because two of the companies only have a few names on them."

"That's great."

"What were you working so hard on?"

"In the spirit of reworking the organizational structure, I had worked with all staff to come up with job descriptions for what they do. I was reviewing and massaging what people had said to come up with final job descriptions. John will need this information when he starts."

"He's confirmed then?"

"He signed the contract today, and will start in another two weeks after he gives his recruitment office his resignation."

"That's fabulous."

"Yes, it is. It can't come too soon. I was thinking about your research department. We have research requests coming in fast, and I'm not sure that one almost-full-time research manager and two part-time researchers will be able to keep up to the demand. Similarly, Leo has been saying that he needs another part-time cyber-geek on staff to help out his department. I was thinking that we could have a full-time staff member who worked part-time in cybersecurity and part-time in research. While the staff member wouldn't have the security experience that is so helpful in the job, they would have the hacking skills needed to get information on people."

"That's a good idea. Our research requests from the TPD take, on average, about five to ten hours a week. If we add another five to ten hours a week for the work for the Newark police, we will be struggling, even if I am currently working full-time on the files and even if we have the equivalent of another full-time person through Miguel and Dirk. Miguel and I are perpetually behind right now and haven't touched Sales requests in weeks. Connie has sent me out five skips that I have to create capture plans for, and that's not including the requests for investigation that Tank has sent to me to do or the upcoming capture plans for Les Sebring. The one good thing is that with having Rangeman do the captures, I'm not spending the time outside the office chasing skips. However, Lula and I are scheduled to take Willy Fish out for lunch on Thursday next week."

"Willy Fish?"

"Willy is a senior man who lives at Herrington Hills retirement home. He was originally arrested for running naked down the street wearing only high heels and yelling 'I'm free'. He said it was the most alive that he had felt in years. He had missed his court date a couple of times. The first time he missed his court date he just couldn't be bothered going and didn't have the ability to leave the retirement home easily. The second time he missed his court date, he did it purposely. The first time he'd had such a good time with Lula and me, hearing our stories and having McDonald's with us, that he missed his court date precisely so that we would come to get him again. He said that it was the best time that he'd had since the last time we took him out. So Lula and I promised him that we would take him out for a meal once a month as long as he went to court and faced his charges. Willy did, and he was given community time for his punishment. He reads to kids and loves it so much that, when his community time had been served, he continued in the role. He said that his life has much improved after running down the street with his willy hanging out."

Ranger thought about smiling. "Where are you planning on going for lunch? I would think that the smells from McDonald's would still affect you as much now as they did a couple of weeks ago."

"I know. I was thinking, as a Christmas treat, of taking them to Luigi's and paying for the meals myself. Normally Willy pays, but with taking them to a more expensive place I thought that it would be better for me to pay. Besides, with Luigi's the food should be good and I should be able to order something light and non-greasy, which means that it would have a better chance of staying down. Lula is pretty flexible as to where she goes to eat, and Willy will just be happy to be able to order whatever he wants rather than being stuck with the two choices offered in the dining hall at the retirement home."

"Are you planning on telling Connie and Lula about the baby?"

"I think it is time. After all, your staff knows now, and I am starting to show. It would be better for them to find out from me than it would for them to run into a Rangeman staff member and have them find out that way."

"That makes sense."

"We are planning on exchanging gifts when I see them next week as well, so I am planning on getting to the bonds office about eleven so that we have half an hour together before Lula and I have to leave for Herrington Hills."

"That makes sense."

I changed into sleepwear and walked into the bathroom, used the facilities and brushed my teeth, and gratefully climbed into bed. Ranger followed a few minutes later. "I'm going to let you sleep in tomorrow", he said. "You're exhausted, and it's neither good for you nor the baby to be so tired."

"I know", I said. "It was all I could do this evening to stay awake long enough to do the searches that I did. I'll be glad when Leo is finished rewriting In-Spect. He said the new program will take much less time to do searches than the existing program. He should be finished writing the code on it by the spring and we'll be able to test it out and the bugs all worked out before the summer starts. Having the extra speed will be good for us and our increased number of research requests, and with the new program it will make reporting faster."

"I haven't talked to him about it recently. How much time does he anticipate that he'll be able to shave off a typical search?"

"A typical search currently takes about half an hour. Ten minutes to do the search, ten minutes to analyze the data, and ten minutes to write up the findings. However, with the new way he is creating the search engine, he predicts that he'll be able to reduce the search time to about three minutes and the report writing to about five minutes. The analysis will still take about ten minutes since that isn't something the computer does but rather is up to the researcher to do. However, his new search engine that he is creating will go more in-depth in each of the research paths so that we have less need to delve further ourselves. A typical search, therefore, should take in the neighborhood of twenty minutes each time rather than the thirty it currently takes. That will be huge. It is quite common to need to investigate a hundred employees with a company start up, and reducing the length of time that a search takes means that it would take about thirty-three hours instead of the current fifty."

"Do you know how many hours Leo has worked on the new search engine design?"

"No, I don't. I know that he's been working on it during his spare time for the last six months, but I don't know how much spare time he has had."

"I'll talk to him about it and will write an increased computer software charge into the contract with Newark. There is currently a small charge in the Trenton contract, but because Newark is a larger municipality we can get away with charging more. It would be good to be able to recoup our costs as much as we can."

"That's true." I yawned and adjusted myself to a more comfortable position. Ranger's arm came down over my waist and he rested his hand on my abdomen.

"I can feel the changes that the baby is making in your body", he said softly. "Your stomach is starting to grow. You are normally so flat, and now you have a very tiny bulge there."

"Uh-hunh."

I could feel Ranger smile as he gave me a kiss on the back of my head. "Have a good sleep, babe."

I think I mumbled a 'you too' before I fell asleep, but I'm not really sure. I was asleep so quickly that I might have dreamed it.


	23. Chapter 23

Dirk was working on the weekend doing patrol and monitoring, and Ranger called Dirk into his office on Saturday to talk about the shift in his responsibilities. I was there for that meeting, and was happy to see that Dirk sounded quite enthused about the shift in his job description. He said that patrol was okay, but he had been watching the job postings to see if there was a job within research that he could do. Apparently after talking to me about it he had become quite interested in the role. "Does that mean that you wouldn't mind doing it full-time while I am off on mat leave?" I said.

Dirk smiled. "I wouldn't mind doing it full-time period. I like patrol, but there is always the potential for there to be a firefight and always being poised to respond means that I am constantly on edge. I saw some bad shit go down when I was stationed overseas, and I need peace rather than to be constantly on edge." He flushed. "I have started having to take antianxiety medication to cope and I don't want to be on it. My doctor has been talking to me about moving jobs to try to get me out of the stressful situation I'm in. I'd love to switch to research on a permanent basis, and if you have a permanent job as a researcher I would love to be considered for the role."

I looked at Ranger, and he looked at me. "I'm not pleased to hear that patrol is resurrecting memories of your past", said Ranger, "but I think we can do something about it. I know that Steph and I haven't talked about this, but I am going to make an executive decision on the fly. We'll move you to research full-time and the half-time person that we talked about, Steph, will only be half-time while you are on mat leave. Leo will be happy that we'll be hiring another full-time person into the cyber-geek role. Until you go on mat leave, we'll have Dirk work research full-time, Miguel part-time and you full-time, babe, and we'll have the new cyber-geek working part-time in research as well. We'll keep the positions the same while you are on mat leave, and when you come back the cyber-geek will transfer to working full-time for Leo and your department will just become you and Dirk and Miguel. Does that make sense?"

"It's good for me", I said. "With having the equivalent of three full-time people working research, we should be able to keep up to date on the research requests. I am worried about how far behind we are currently getting, and I know that Miguel is worried about it as well. What will it do to Miguel's overtime hours?"

"Somehow I think there will still be overtime hours in there for Miguel if you want to stay up to date on research requests. I know that you and Miguel have been working flat out to try to keep up, but you are falling further and further behind. I'm not happy with the amount of overtime you are working. It's not good for you and it's not good for the baby. I know that your backlog is causing stress for everybody, and having another person and a half added to the research team will be helpful." Ranger turned to Dirk. "Your pay will actually increase by five thousand a year and you will no longer be required to wear a gun at all times. However, you will be required to go to weekly therapy sessions until you get your anxiety under control. I know from experience that PTSD will never go away, but you will be able to control it so that it doesn't take over your life. I hope, with regular talk therapy, that you'll feel comfortable enough to get off the antianxiety medication. While it has its uses, I'd prefer for you not to have a need for it just because that means that you are feeling better about life in general. Do you have any questions?"

Dirk grinned. "When do I start?"

I smiled. Dirk would be a good person to add to the mix. He was married and had two little children, so the regular office hours would be better for him rather than the shift work that was required with doing patrol and monitoring. He got along well with Miguel and, when Ranger had talked to Miguel earlier to feel out his reaction to transferring Dirk into the role, Miguel was quite positive about the shift – and very thankful as, like me, he had been worried about our ability to get it all done. He was also happy to think that he might be going back to doing a mixture of patrol and research again.

After Ranger dismissed Dirk and told him to take the remainder of the weekend off before starting in research on the Monday and Dirk had left the room, Ranger turned to me. "I know that we hadn't talked about the increase in your staff size before, but like you I don't want to take the chance that Dirk walks away from the company. He is a valuable member that, gut instinct says, will be a great addition to the research department."

"That's what I thought."

"I understand what it is like to dream about firefights regularly, and to recover from everything you have seen overseas. It isn't easy, which is why I required him to go to weekly therapy sessions until he was feeling more comfortable. PTSD is a tough disorder to have but it is treatable and is something he shouldn't have to live with. Gabriel will be able to help him through that."

"Are you glad that you hired Gabriel as the staff psychiatrist?"

"I am. Many of our staff members use antianxiety medications. I wouldn't go so far as to say that people are broken, but there are some people that we have hired that are definitely dented from their experiences. It doesn't make them bad employees, but it is something that we have to be cognizant of. Being able to treat those staff onsite just makes sense, and it is good for staff to have that stigma associated with needing treatment taken away. After all, if Rangeman has hired a psychiatrist to offer both pharmacological and psychological therapy, then I think it will be easier for staff to admit that they are having problems – which means that we will be better able to assign tasks to those staff members to accommodate their issues."

"Gabriel started a week ago. How is he finding it?"

"I was talking to him this morning. He said that he'd like to adjust his hours so that he works one day on the weekend and takes Wednesdays off during the week. He said that he thought he might get more staff that way, since people want generally to come in their off hours. He also said that he was booked solid into the new year, and that he was glad that I had hired him in time for the Christmas season as – like in general with mental health issues – there was a greater need for services at this time of the year. He seemed quite positive about the sessions that he has been offering and thought that he'd be able to help people. I have had a couple of people thank me for hiring him as well. They said that they had tried other psychiatrists in the past, but with Gabriel coming from a military background he understood far better than other doctors they had tried. That is another role that I might be hiring more people for. I just have to wait and see if the need for therapy evens out over the new year, but at this point I'm thinking I might have to hire a psychologist or another psychiatrist to service our needs."

"You are hiring so many more people."

"I can't keep ahead of the hiring need. The good news is that we have the income to support the influx of people."

"Is your Miami office just as successful?"

"Yes, although there are some services that aren't offered from the Miami office."

"Like what?"

"Our whole cybersecurity department is here in Trenton, as is our personal security department. If people want bodyguards, we will travel to them rather than only servicing bodyguard needs in the Trenton area. Our whole finance department is located here in Trenton as is our purchasing department. There are just some things that are better done from our head office."

"How big is the Miami office? I know that we are running just over one hundred and eighty people here."

"Of which almost a hundred are off-site security guards working out of other locations. The only thing they come into head office for is training. I have to hire more security guards as well. We have just taken on another three clients, and we'll be rolling out their security programs in the new year. I have to hire about thirty guards. In answer to your question, our Miami office is almost as big as this one, and has approximately fifty people on staff with two ERT teams and about one hundred and fifty security guards on payroll. In that office the Executive Director, Russ, has gone after the security guard services in a big way and that department is growing with leaps and bounds. He anticipates adding another fifty to a hundred guards in the new year."

"That's amazing. Your company is getting so big."

"And it is getting bigger and bigger every day. I keep wondering when the growth is going to stop. I will be so glad when John starts full-time."

"When is he officially starting?"

"The second of January. I'll be away when he starts. I'm currently scheduled to go to Miami to review the office there on the second, and to work with Russ until the fifth. On the fifth I'll travel to Colombia to do training on PMC business and won't be back until sometime on the tenth or eleventh. Nate will get John settled and I'll see him when I get back."

"You go to Miami about once every couple of months for a few days, don't you?"

"I do. I find having that personal contact with staff to be beneficial. I'm only gone about two or three days, but it lets me meet everyone and listen to any concerns that they might have."

I looked at him. "You're a good boss, you know that?"

He flushed. "I don't know about that", he said. "Like everyone else in this company, I'm struggling to keep up. I just hope that I don't miss anything important along the way. Do you want to get a bite together before we start work again for the afternoon?" And just like that, our conversation about Ranger's management style was over with. I guessed that Ranger didn't want to get embarrassed again.

Ranger and I ate a snack together. With sleeping in so late, we had missed the lunchtime period. It was lucky that Ella made us a private breakfast, in fact, because we had missed the breakfast period in the break room as well. However, I was happy. Not only was there a raisin scone left in the snacks in the break room that I was able to eat for lunch, but there was also a bag of trail mix that had raisins in it that I was able to slowly nibble on throughout the afternoon.

Miguel and I had a productive weekend researching, and despite taking time off to buy bedroom furniture for Julie on the Sunday and despite sleeping in both days, Miguel was finished his list of names by Monday morning and I only had the two small companies left to research. I had also created a sample template for Miguel to fill out for the creation of a capture plan. I figured that we'd try the template out for a couple of weeks and, in the new year, we'd have Leo create a fillable PDF form that could be used by any of us.

I walked into the research office on Monday morning at nine. I had wanted to get there earlier, but apparently the morning sickness, although better, hadn't left me completely and I had spent some time hunched over the toilet that morning before work. "How did the house hunting go?" I asked Miguel.

Miguel grinned. "I found a house that I had really liked. I want to almost gut the place and start from scratch, but it has a lot of character that I'll be able to salvage. So my parents came up on Saturday to look at the place, and they were equally as enthusiastic about the house. I put in an offer yesterday and the offer expires as of eight o'clock this evening."

"I wish you luck. What is the house like?" Dirk came into the office and I smiled at him.

"It's an older home that has some stained glass windows in it. Baseboards are deep and there is an old-fashioned floor plan to the place. I like the floor plan. I just want to open it up a bit so that there is more open space. It has four separate small bedrooms. Two of them I am planning on making into a master. The garage is separate and has a two-bedroom apartment above it that I'll be able to rent out to help me cover the cost of the mortgage. I'm going to fix up the apartment first and live in the house and, while I am doing the work on the house, I'll switch and live in the apartment. I talked to Ranger on Saturday about Dirk starting, and he called me back later in the day to let me know that we'd be hiring Dirk to work full-time and another person part-time until after you are back from mat leave, which means that I will be back to doing patrol part of the time and research part of the time. Ranger said that you were worried about the fact that there would be less overtime with having the increase in staff size. However, I'm not worried. With having the apartment at the house that I'll be able to rent out, there will be less of a need to count on my salary and with having less overtime, I'll be able to do a lot more of the work on the house by myself. The house is easily affordable on my salary and, because of the separate apartment and because the house is in an area that is currently undergoing regentrification, I think it will be a good investment."

"That's fabulous. I'm so happy for you!"

"Thanks, chica", said Miguel. "Now I just have to keep my fingers crossed that the offer is accepted. I have put in a low offer knowing that the house has been on the market for a while and hasn't had any offers. I hope they accept it."

"I'm keeping my fingers crossed."

"How are you feeling?" asked Miguel. "You look sort of white."

I smiled. "They say that morning sickness is often a sign that the baby is healthy. I just have to say that this must be the healthiest baby that I have ever seen."

Dirk and Miguel laughed. "I remember when my wife went through that", said Dirk. "It wasn't fun for anyone, but it did get better."

"Every night before I go to sleep I pray that the next day will be the day it gets better. However, each morning I discover that God isn't listening to me."

"He will and, if he doesn't, it will be definitely over in another seven months", said Dirk.

"Thank God."

"Do you want to work at your desk today?" asked Miguel as he stood.

"I have commandeered the conference room on the second floor for our use today. Dirk, you need to stop by the IT department to pick up your new laptop. I thought all three of us could work together in the conference room so that we can teach Dirk the basics and, as he gets going, both of us can help him wade through the peculiarities of the In-Spect program. Just so that you know, it looks like we might be signing on the Newark police division as a client today, and the work that we will do for them will be research work, much the same as we do for the TPD. They anticipate that we'll have a research request once per week but, as we have seen through the TPD, as our services get to be known our research skills are called more and more into use. Morelli said that he will have another two research requests coming in later today, and Tank has a number of research requests that we are getting behind on. Additionally, I have five files from the bonds office that I have to create capture plans on, and we have just signed Les Sebring as a client and will soon be doing capture plans for him as well. Miguel, I finished all the suppliers for the Manoso's other than Bunnykins and From the Sea. If you could start your day doing those companies while I work on capture plans, that would be good. Dirk, I'd like you to sit with Miguel this morning while Miguel does the research for Bunnykins so that you can learn the program. Perhaps you should observe and ask questions for Bunnykins and, when that company is done, you should switch so that you are doing the work on the From the Sea employees and Miguel is observing and giving you pointers. By the time the day is over, I hope to be finished our summary report on the Manoso files and have it sent off to Ranger. I will also need the number of hours that we worked on our investigation. Ranger will need this for the preparation of his bill to the Newark police. Does that make sense?"

"Sounds good to me", said Miguel.

Dirk was smiling from ear to ear. "Can I say again how happy I am to be doing research? This is going to be a great assignment. My wife said yesterday that it had been a long time since I had been as happy as I was on the weekend."

I laughed. "Hopefully you feel the same after looking at person upon person who have done nothing wrong in their lives. That sort of investigation is boring."

"Boring is good", said Dirk.

Miguel and I smiled. Little did he know.


	24. Chapter 24

By the time lunchtime rolled around, I was exhausted – but I had accomplished a lot and was happy with the amount of work that I'd been able to wade through that morning. Dirk and Miguel had done good work and Dirk had been able to fly by himself much faster than I had anticipated, which meant that the summary report for the Manoso files was completed by lunch. I sent it to Ranger and told him that I was skipping our lunch together and heading to bed for an hour. He called me immediately. "Is everything okay?" he said.

"Yes – just wiped out. It was a busy morning and we got a lot of work done. Morelli is coming in for quarter after one with another two research requests. Dirk is taking to research like a duck to water. He told Miguel that it was because Miguel was a good teacher, and he is. But Dirk is a natural as well. I figured that I would take one of the research requests and Miguel and Dirk could do the other one."

"That's great. Are you overdoing things?"

"I don't think so. I think this is more a reflection that I couldn't hold any food down at breakfast, and I haven't been able to stomach the thought of having food yet for the day. I hope that I'll be able to keep some food down after a nap."

"I should have let you stay in bed longer."

"I don't know about that. I had to get up to be in the office by the time that Dirk showed up. I couldn't stay in bed today."

"Will you be able to work from home tomorrow?"

"No. For the remainder of the week, I'd like to be onsite to help Dirk with any questions that he might have. I have commandeered the conference room for the rest of the week. Miguel and Dirk are having working lunches as they attack one of Tank's files, but I told them that I would be back in an hour. Did you see the report I sent you?"

"I haven't looked at it yet. Does this mean that you are finished doing all the suppliers now?"

"Yes. They have all been completed and, like I had predicted, we didn't find any other surprises. It was a huge chunk of work. I'll prepare our statement of work for you after lunch to detail the hours that we spent researching. You'll need that when you prepare your bill for the Newark police."

"That would be great, thanks. I can add it to the statement of work that Tank prepared for Raphael and I will just have the statement of work for Cal to go. Are you just planning on using the template that you devised for the TPD? That's the template that Tank used for Raphael's reporting of hours."

"I was planning on it. It's a good template and has been well received by the TPD."

"That's great. Where are you now?"

"I just walked into our bedroom."

"I'll let you nap then, and will wake you up at five to one."

"It's a deal." I hung up the phone and sank onto the mattress, pleased that the contractors had left the apartment for lunch. I was asleep within seconds.

At five to one, Ranger came into the bedroom and woke me up. I could hear the sounds of hammering and nailing as I surfaced. "You must have been tired, babe", he said.

"I was, but why do you say that?"

"The contractors have been back at work for the last fifteen minutes, and you have slept through the hammering and banging."

"They have?" I said. "I didn't even know that they were in the apartment. I'm not very good at being aware of my surroundings, am I?"

Ranger smiled. "You know that you are in a safe place, and you relax as though you are in a safe place. That's okay. My guess is that, if you were in a new place, you wouldn't be as relaxed about things. The contractors said that for the remainder of the time that they are working in the apartment they will be sure to take a full hour for lunch, just so that you have time to sleep each day."

"That is nice of them."

"We are paying them well to be nice."

I smiled.

Ranger kissed my nose. "I have made you a banana smoothie for your lunch, and have brought up a raisin scone. Were you able to eat any breakfast?"

"No. I don't think this baby is a morning person."

Ranger thought about smiling. "He or she must take after their mom", he said.

I grinned. "Well, they certainly don't take after you in that way."

Ranger's lips quirked up. "Are you awake now?"

"Yes."

"Then finish up in the bathroom and I'll introduce you to the contractor before we go back down to the offices."

I quickly finished up and walked out of the bedroom to the living room. "I'm so sorry", said the foreman. "I didn't know that you were sleeping, otherwise we never would have made so much noise."

"That's okay. I slept through it anyway."

"I remember when my wife was at that stage of her pregnancies. She even, a couple of times, fell asleep while eating dinner."

I smiled. "Luckily I haven't been that bad, but I have almost fallen asleep standing up a few times. My niece informed me that horses do the same thing, and I'm not certain I like being compared to a horse."

The contractor turned to Ranger. "Dylan, the owner, wanted to tell you that we got the permitting passed from the city this morning, so that block of work is done. We're finishing another office building in the months of January and February, but pending weather we should be breaking ground on your new building by the end of March."

"That's fabulous."

"I have been working with the architect to plan out the build, and am starting to order materials with a March arrival. This is exciting." He smiled. "I'm sorry – I always get excited at the start of a construction project."

"Revamping this apartment must be small potatoes to you", I said.

"I have a staff of almost a hundred", said the foreman. "This build only requires two of my staff while the remainder of my staff is finishing the previous building. Yes, this is a project that we normally wouldn't take on. However, we are looking at this as part of the larger project and are happy to be able to start the new project, even if it is only in a small way."

"Thank you", said Ranger. "We should let you get back to work so that we can get down to the office. I know that Steph has a meeting in about ten minutes."

I shook the foreman's hand. "It was nice to meet you", I said.

Ranger and I left the apartment and took the stairs down to the fifth floor and, when we separated so that Ranger could go to his office, the elevator doors opened and Morelli walked onto the floor. He came over and gave me a kiss and a hug and shook Ranger's hand, and as he started down the hall to my office I told him that we were using the conference room on the second floor. "We have another staff member. I don't think that you have met Dirk in the past, but he seems to be catching on quickly. He was former military, but his background is in accounting and we think he will be especially good at doing research into corporate accounts."

"Is Miguel no longer doing research then?"

"Nope, he's doing research as well", I said. I pressed the down button for the elevator, and the elevator was right there. We walked on and a few seconds later arrived on the second floor. "He will, as soon as we are caught up, be going back to splitting his time doing research and patrol, a fact that makes him happy. He's not happy doing research full-time."

"Your department is growing."

"Yes, it is. In the new year we are going to be hiring another staffer who will split their time between research and cybersecurity. When I come off mat leave, that person will switch to working cybersecurity constantly."

"Do you have enough work for all these people?"

"We have been giving your research requests priority, but we are over a month behind on Sales requests, and over two weeks behind on Operations requests. We have just signed on the City of Newark to do the same sort of research requests for their police division as we do for the TPD, we have just signed on Les Sebring to do his skip tracing and will consequently need to do all the associated capture plans, and Andy, the Sales manager, was saying that we should market our research department as a separate entity. He sees a market niche for us with all large companies wanting to hire and vet new staff. He doesn't feel that market niche has been explored yet. If that happens, our research department will grow again."

"Stephanie Plum, the Grand Poobah?"

I laughed. "I think that would be Ranger Manoso, Grand Poobah."

"I'd love to see that on his business card."

I laughed again as I walked into the conference room and introduced Dirk to Morelli. After the introductions were over, I turned to Morelli. "What do you have for us?"

"I have two files. The first is for First Century Homes. I would like an investigation into everything, financials and all the owners. They are 'selling' homes to people and then failing to deliver on the construction. They say that they haven't been able to get the permits, which is true because they haven't applied for them. It seems clear-cut, however the company has said that, because they can't get the permits, they will build similar houses in a similar neighborhood and are taking the down payments that people are paying to build the houses and that the new houses will be sold to the buyers instead. It already is a case of fraud, but we have to find out if they are indeed building the houses that they are intending to do the switch with. Our department has done a cursory check on the company and hasn't been able to find anything – from registration of the company onwards. I'd like to know whether this is a scheme that they have done somewhere else in the States. I'd like to know where people's down payments have been going. In short, I'd like to know the extent of the fraud and whether this is a recurring crime."

"That sounds like something that is in your wheelhouse, Dirk", I said.

"That, out of the two, is our priority. It would be a nice Christmas present to be able to tell the victims that the criminals have been identified and charged with fraud."

"What is the second one?" I asked.

"The second one is for a murderer. We found a few murder victims left behind dumpsters across the city. Victims have recently had abortions, but we haven't found any record of abortions done in the hospitals on these victims. The coroner said that the abortions were performed by cutting out the fetus while it was in the womb, and the resulting slip of the knife and blood loss was the cause of death. Now that abortions are being seen as murder in some states in the US, we are seeing more and more back alley abortions occurring. We have interviewed the families of the expectant mothers, and they have all said that the women had acquired the name of the abortionist through the internet. I know that isn't a typical research request, but our own research department is swamped and now that we are coming into the Christmas season, we are short-staffed and unable to spare the manpower to do the investigation ourselves."

"I'll take that research request", I said, "and do it personally. That one hits a little closer to home for me."

"It won't upset you, will it?" asked Morelli.

"I don't think so and, if it does, I'll hand it off to Miguel."

Morelli looked at me, his eyes soft. "Just don't let it upset you. I have brought a copy of the autopsy reports and the crime scene reports and the information that we've been able to bring up, but I suspect that you'll get more. Whatever you do, however, I only want you to do computer work on this. I would hate for you to lose the baby because you decided to do some investigating of your own and the abortionist decided to practice his or her trade on you." I blanched and my stomach lurched.

Morelli must have noticed and decided that he had made his point, as he decided to change the subject before I got more upset. "Is it true", he said, "that your grandmother is going to become a movie star?"

I groaned. "Where did you hear that?"

Morelli laughed. "My mother heard it from Angie who heard it when she was getting her hair cut the other day."

I quickly told him about the incident at the mall. "So Grandma has now decided that she's going to be a rock star", I concluded. "It doesn't help that the producer who has contacted her has been encouraging her. He said that she'll be able to earn lots of money. I've tried to tell her that, when you act in something on YouTube, you don't get paid for the posting. There are no royalty checks and the only person who gets paid is the person who posts the video. She doesn't believe me and says that this is her intro into becoming a big star. My father has asked that, if she is a star, she could live on her own again. The good news is this recent belief that she is going to be a big star has diverted her from her more recent kick into buying nude pictures on line. She bought some life-sized nude pictures of men that she has pinned to the walls in her room. The only problem is that she used my mother's name to order the pictures and my mother has been added to a database. She is getting daily booty calls for all sorts of strangers, calls that my grandmother is encouraging my mother to take advantage of while she has her youth."

Morelli laughed.

"You can laugh, but it was very tense around my parents' house for a few days and, although my grandmother is no longer on the 'naked men' kick, the tension is still there to a certain degree as, with my mother's constant barrage of naked men propositioning her, she isn't able to move past the issue."

"That's better than what I'm subjected to", said Morelli. "I swear that my grandmother and mother are on a kick to try to get me engaged by Christmas. They keep inviting me over for dinner and, if I decline, give me a guilt trip. And when I get there, I find that my mother and grandmother have invited a strange woman to dinner to meet me. And they are strange. The one last night was a lesbian who told me that she was looking for a partner that would let her use him as a screen to hide her homosexuality behind. So I would be a friend but not a lover. When I questioned her on the benefits to me, she said the main benefit was that she'd let me watch. When I got mad at my mother and grandmother after she left, my grandmother said the woman was a good Christian and she was certain that I'd be able to change her sexuality. Like that was even possible!"

"I hear you. After I broke up with you and before my parents knew that I was going out with Ranger, I was subjected to many such disasters. My favorite was the baker who picked his nose during dinner, then ate the boogers off his finger and proceeded to tell my mother that her cooking was substandard. I haven't been able to frequent that bakery since. Come to think of it, neither has my mother."

Morelli laughed.


	25. Chapter 25

I ran into Amelia as I walked down towards the elevator at the end of the day. "How are you?" I asked.

Amelia grinned. "I was just on my way to Ranger's office to thank him. He arranged for a hiring bonus to be paid into my account. It equaled a whole-month's salary! Dave and Daniela, his wife, are letting me stay in their apartment above their garage, and it's a great place. It's clean and the bed is extremely comfortable. They said that the apartment is available for as long as I want to stay. The hiring bonus is large enough that I can pay my first month's rent as well as buy some clothes, and I have enrolled in online childcare courses so that I can get my early childcare education certificate. Dave said that I can use my company laptop to do the work, and the company has lent me a phone to use until I get my own. The IT guy, I forget his name, told me to use it as long as I wanted, but just not to put long-distance charges on it. I am now saving for a car. With the little rent that Dave and Daniela are charging me, I should have the money saved for a car within the next three or four months. My life has done a one-eighty in the last two weeks, and it is all because of Rangeman."

"I would say it is because of you. You're the one doing the work. You're the one furthering your education and taking the steps to pull yourself out of the hole that you were in. We haven't done that much." She was shaking her head. "I have a lot of respect for you", I said. "You have gone through a rough patch, but you remain optimistic and prepared for a better future. You are doing good things with your life. You should be proud of yourself."

Her cheeks darkened with embarrassment.

"Do you think Ranger is in his office?" she said. "I was hoping to thank him."

I smiled. "He would like that."

We got off the elevator and walked down to Ranger's office. He was working on the computer when we got there. "Are you ready to go up, babe?" he said. "I can work upstairs for a while."

"Before we go, Amelia is here to see you."

Ranger smiled at her as she walked into the room. "Actually", said Amelia, "my parents used to call me Mellie, and I was wondering whether you'd like to call me that as well."

"I'd be honored", said Ranger. I smiled and nodded.

"I just wanted to thank you for the opportunity you have given to me", she said to Ranger. "Between you and Dave and Daniela, I have a future again. When I retired from the army, it was because I couldn't take the pressure any longer. I was getting bad dreams and flashbacks, and it wasn't safe for my teammates for me to be in the field. However, when I got back to the States things didn't improve. I had nowhere to go. My friends had moved on without me and I don't have any family to fall back on. I was barely scraping by even though I was living a subsistence life. I couldn't find a job and was facing homelessness because I didn't have the money to come up with rent. And then Hal and Hector came along and took me away from that. I thought, at that time, the best thing to happen to me was for me to be put in jail. However, then you came." She started to cry and swiped the tears from her face. I put my arm around her and pulled her in for a sideways hug. "You saved me", she said with a choked voice. "And I am so damn grateful."

Ranger thought about smiling. "Mellie, you're the one doing the work. All we're doing is opening a couple of doors for you."

"I don't know how I will ever repay you."

"Just keep fighting", said Ranger. "That's all I ask. Dave said that he and Zach are impressed with how much you know and how you fast you are learning to be a bodyguard. Zach has said that you could be his partner when he is guarding people any day and that he thinks you'll be an easy person to work with. Dave said that he has always had a good instinct for identifying those people who would make suitable bodyguards, and you stand out as being stellar. He is very glad, as am I, that you have joined the team."

"Daniela took me out to Walmart to do some shopping on the weekend, and I was able to buy some new clothes and toiletries. Daniela and Dave are still feeding me and said that, since I want to contribute, I could clean up the kitchen after dinner at night. Apparently Daniela likes to cook but isn't as fond of cleaning up the kitchen. Their kids are great kids as well. Being at their house is like being surrounded by family. Daniela said that my friends all basically abandoned me when I returned stateside, but that I now had the opportunity to make new friends."

"That's true. Regular civilians don't understand the rigors and challenges associated with coming back from being stationed overseas, and they don't know how to support a returning vet. It's a sad fact, but it's the way it is. I'm glad to hear that you are landing on your feet."

"For the first time in a long time, I can look at myself in the mirror with pride."

"I'm happy to hear that. That's the way you should look at yourself."

"Steph said that this job was an opportunity to chase my dreams. My dream is to go into childcare though, and that's a far cry from being a bodyguard."

"That's true", said Ranger, "but there are times when we have to bodyguard and take care of children. In that instance, we would designate you as the bodyguard in charge of the detail."

Amelia smiled. "I'd like that", she said. "I've been worried about the fact that you are giving me this great opportunity to get back on my feet, and I want to be doing something else."

"Schooling never goes amiss", said Ranger. "Don't worry about that."

"I should let you get on with your day, but I had wanted to thank you for the hiring bonus and the opportunity you have given me. I won't let you down."

Ranger smiled. "I know you won't, Mellie."

Her eyes welled with tears again, and she ducked around me and strode down the hall.

Ranger looked at me. "Do you think she'll be okay?" he asked.

I smiled. "I think she just needs a minute to herself", I said.

Ranger nodded and shut his computer down before looking up. "Are you ready to go upstairs for the evening?" he said.

I smiled again. "I am."

"Are you planning on having a nap before dinner for an hour? I asked Ella to have dinner ready for six-thirty."

"I think that I'm okay", I said. "That nap at lunch really topped me up and gave me the energy to get through the afternoon. Tomorrow the guys aren't expecting me to be in the office until ten, so I can sleep through some of the morning sickness and can take the time to eat my breakfast slowly. It seemed to work better last week doing it that way than it did this morning when the morning was more rushed."

"That's good", said Ranger. He looked at me with a soft expression on his face. "I love you", he said.

"I love you too, but where did that come from?" I said as I smiled.

"I was just sitting here looking at you, and it overwhelmed me." His face flushed. "I just needed to say it." He got up from his chair, rounded his desk and came over to me. He pulled me into a hug. "You marrying me, you having my baby, my company growing and flourishing…my life is just about perfect right now."

I smiled softly at him. "So is mine", I said.

"Let's get this baby upstairs. I owed you a massage the other day, and you've been too tired at night for me to give you one. How about I give you one now?"

"Oh, no. I know what happens when you give me massages. I fall asleep."

Ranger smiled. "That would be good as well", he said. "I want you to be awake when it is bedtime tonight."

"Why's that?"

"It's been a week since your last obstetrician's appointment and, according to the doctor, we are now cleared for take-off."

I smiled. "You know, an afternoon nap does sound like a good idea after all."

Ranger's lips quirked up in a half-smile. He guided me out of his office while carrying a set of blueprints. "What's on the blueprints?" I said. "I thought the blueprints for the new tower have been finalized." We got on the elevator and took it up to the seventh floor.

"They have. These are the plans for the office retrofit. Our apartment will already be done by the time the office building is being retrofitted. However, we are planning out where to put the different offices. I wanted to go over the new floor plans this evening, and would be interested in hearing your take on things. I have a meeting with Tank and Nate tomorrow about the plans as well."

"I'd love to see what you are planning."

"After your nap."

I grinned. "Can I tempt you with having a nap with me?"

"You think I'm tired?"

"I was thinking of potentially naked napping because, really, that's the best kind of napping around."

"Really? I was thinking about partner showering", said Ranger. "Because partner showering means that you are more likely to get clean." We walked off the elevator and Ranger unlocked the apartment door. We kicked off our shoes, and Ranger put the blueprints on the kitchen counter and led me into the master suite. "We could do a double header", he said. "After all, after a massage you are a little greasy and, although that is intriguing, it would be better if you could then have a shower to get rid of all the…oil." He gave one of his half-smiles that I loved so much, and I leaned forward and kissed him. As our tongues touched and began to duel Ranger pulled me into his body and ran his hands all over my back and sides, grazing the interesting parts with his thumbs and kneading my skin with his fingers. He threaded his fingers through my hair and groaned. "I need you so fucking much", he said.

"I thought you were planning on giving me a massage."

I tried not to smile at the tortured expression on Ranger's face – but then he smiled. "Babe, I have heard that internal massages are the most rewarding massages of all."

"Really? How do you do those?"

"I have a special massage appendage", said Ranger with another half-smile.

"Let's check it out", I said.

"Thank God."


	26. Chapter 26

Ranger massaged me twice in bed and once in the shower, and afterwards I did have a nap. Ranger woke me at seven-thirty with the knowledge that Ella had made me macaroni and cheese, and that dinner had been ready for the last hour. "Did you sleep?" I asked as I more fully opened my eyes.

Ranger smiled. "Not really. I just enjoyed cuddling in to you for a while, and after a while I got up and did some work for the office. Les Sebring got the contracts signed and sent back to us. Like with Vinnie, we are getting ten percent of the capture fee whenever we do any of his captures. He has already sent us seven skips that we are going to need capture plans for. Apparently, when Jeanne Ellen found out that we were doing some of the high-value captures for him, she quit. Les said that she was more trouble than she was worth and he doesn't think that he will replace her with another bounty hunter. He is just going to use our services. He said that he was paying the same amount, but we were more professional and would be faster at doing the captures since we have the option of having a few teams pick up skips simultaneously."

"That's good for us."

"That's great for us. Tank is happy and staff is ecstatic. They have been greatly enjoying doing your captures for you."

"How did it go with the Newark police?"

"I have a verbal agreement with Janet and she is taking the contract to the legal department for approval but she seemed to think that the agreement was fair. Your team did a good job with the supplier reports", he said. "I sent the reports both to Dawn as well as Janet, and I gave Janet some time to review them prior to sending the proposal through for her review. It worked out well. She called me to congratulate your team on the quality of product you produce and she was almost falling over herself in trying to get us signed on. She said she should be able to get the proposal reviewed and approved by the end of the week."

"That's fast."

"Apparently they have some work for us to do. She said they have no leads on four cases right now, and she suspected that they would soon have another two cases to add to the roster."

"Oh boy." I got out of bed and put on Ranger's housecoat, rolled up the sleeves and tied the sash tightly. I used the facilities and brushed my hair, still damp from our shower, and walked through to the kitchen. "By the sounds of the work that is coming down the pipe, it was a good thing that we hired on Dirk full-time and are thinking of hiring another cyber-geek/researcher. If Newark is like Trenton, one full-time person will need to be dedicated to Trenton's and Newark's research requests, one full-time person will be dedicated to client set-ups, one half-time person will be dedicated to Operations' requests and capture plans, and the last half-time person will be dedicated to Sales' requests. It's not going to be as definite as that as we'll share the work around, but that's about how much work each book of business will take."

"Expect that the work that we are bringing in for the research department will increase over time as well. Andy has a marketing plan for us to do due diligence research for companies. He has tasked one of his staff with this marketing plan, and the salesperson has developed a connection with a mutual fund company. They want help with their due diligence for companies they are interested in buying. I thought Dirk would be good at that."

"Dirk would be excellent in the roIe", I said. "He seems to enjoy looking at financials and spreadsheets. He really took the bit and ran with it today when we had to look into a home building company for evidence of fraud. He worked fast – much faster than either Miguel or myself could do – and by the end of the afternoon he had the evidence that Morelli was looking for."

"Were you working on Tank's requests this afternoon?"

"No. I was investigating the existence of a back alley abortionist today. I didn't find him or her, but I did find out all sorts of information about abortion that I never knew nor even cared to know. Did you know that some states ban abortion past the six-week mark? I barely knew that I was pregnant at the six-week mark, and would never have been in a mental state to make such a far-reaching decision. And did you know that some states don't allow abortion, even in cases of incest or rape? I can't imagine being traumatized in such a way and being forced to face the physical proof of what happened on a daily basis. It just seems wrong."

"It seems odd to me. I know the church doesn't allow abortion, but I had thought that – in the States anyway – there was a divide between church and state. These new abortion laws don't respect that separation."

"I know that it's a hot topic right now. The internet is full of contradicting facts and inciting anger regarding this issue from both sides of the fence. However, there have apparently been an increase in the number of back alley abortions and the resulting hospitalizations and deaths that these abortions have caused. I'm glad that New Jersey hasn't regulated abortion the same way as some of the other states but even so the injuries and fatalities are mounting up."

"I remember seeing something at one point", said Ranger, "that asked, if abortion was considered murder of a child, whether a blow job was considered cannibalism. Yet no man has a problem with a blow job."

I laughed as I got the tray of macaroni out of the warming oven and put it on the trivet. Ranger got out the salad and the dressings, and I set the table as Ranger poured the milk. "I heard one in a movie once", I said. "If ejaculation into a woman creates a baby that the man will have to look after for the rest of his life, is masturbation considered harmful neglect of that sperm?"

Ranger smiled. "A very good question." He paused. "Consider the tapeworm."

"Okay."

"A tapeworm has a heartbeat and is a living organism. If someone gets a tapeworm, are they expected to let it live in their body just because the tapeworm is another living being?"

I laughed. "Another good question. When you think about it, the whole question is ridiculous."

"I know", said Ranger. "When it comes right down to it, I believe that an unwanted baby will be affected by that lack of love during pregnancy for the rest of their life. I believe that negative energy will surround that baby and impact on its success as it grows up. If you are carrying a child and actively don't want that child enough that you were willing to take the steps to have a back alley abortion, you would be giving a bad start to the baby before it was even born."

"I didn't want the baby when we conceived."

"You did want the baby, babe. You were just scared, and that's okay. Tell me honestly, would you have considered an abortion, back alley or in the hospital?"

"No."

"I rest my case. You wanted the baby. You were just worried as to what it meant for you and me and the changes it would make in our lives." He dished up a small plate of food for me, and a larger plate of food for himself. We started to eat.

"Thank you", I said.

"For what?"

"I've been worried about the baby and, now that its brain is developing, I was worried that not wanting the baby was affecting its development. But you are right. I never disliked the idea of having a baby so much that I considered abortion. I always thought that we love each other and, when a baby is conceived in a union where the baby is loved, you should continue with the pregnancy."

"If you hadn't loved me?"

"Then all bets would have been off", I said with a laugh.

Ranger smiled.

"What did you do today?" I asked.

"I talked to Elena and my parents. They talked to a lawyer about the abattoir, and then they talked to Dawn about the case. Through their conversations, the lawyer recommended that they sell their shares in the slaughterhouse immediately. Dawn said that it wouldn't negatively affect the abattoir investigation and gave them the go ahead to do so and told them that, if the owner of the abattoir questioned our family on it, they should tell the owner that we had discovered that they weren't buying organic meat and were selling their shares because of its lack of ethics. My father phoned them this evening and was able to sell the stock back to the owner at a good price. They were happy and feeling quite a bit more relaxed about things. As my father said, he was grateful that they'd been able to sell off such an unethical company because it was so different than their own personal values. The lawyer thought that they'd be able to sue the company for the fraud and the loss of income associated with the poisoning. Dawn said that she couldn't predict as to whether they would be charged, but she said that they were doing everything possible that she could think of to help out in the investigation and, if it wasn't for them, there wouldn't be an investigation. She said that she knew the police themselves would look favorably upon their participation and she would personally try to avoid charging them with anything. My parents are still worried, but they feel more reassured about what is going on."

"Did the lawyer think that that they could legally get out of their contract with Nature-Fresh?"

"They can. He said that Nature-Fresh broke the contract by not providing what they were paying for and, because they aren't selling organic meat as they are under a contractual obligation to do, they are in fact the people who are breaking their contract and they owe my parents a penalty for breaking the contract early. My parents said that they will never enter that sort of contract again and the only reason that they had entered it in the first place was because they had been told that the cost would be cheaper overall. They are, I think, feeling very stupid over what has happened."

"Are your parents hoping to open the restaurant again before New Year's?"

"Elena said that, if they reopen the restaurant on Friday, they will have only missed two Christmas parties and will be able to serve all the remaining parties. Dawn told my parents that, after the investigation is complete, she will release information to the media regarding the investigation and my parents' role in bringing the poisoner to justice."

"So all's well that ends well?"

"It will be, as soon as Cal identifies the method of poisoning."

"Has he checked in with you today?"

"He has. He said he was going to do some investigating after hours tonight. He suspects the meat is being poisoned at night. The meat is loaded into refrigerated trucks the night before and driven to the restaurants the next morning. The boxes are identified according to what they are and the people who are supposed to be receiving them. He said it would be easy to sabotage the shipments at that time."

"I hope that he is careful."

"He will be. Cal is a professional. From what I am getting from him, he is very happy with his assignment. He said that he is greatly enjoying the added challenge. Tank and I were talking today, and we have pretty well decided that we are going to offer an investigative option for clients. We have run into requests for this service several times and we've had to send the people away to other companies. It would be better if we had someone on staff who could do the work. Cal is an excellent person and would do well in the role. It would mean that he wasn't part of the ERT any longer, but you win some and you lose some. He'll have to find somewhere to live."

"Miguel will have a place soon that he'll be able to rent."

"I'll keep it in mind to mention to him."

"Who are you going to place in the ERT in Cal's position?"

"I think I'll have to hire someone. I don't have anyone else on staff with special ops training."

"Are you planning on sending a referral request to all staff again? The last time that you did that, you ended up with several good candidates."

"I did that when you were sleeping before dinner. I outlined all the jobs that we have available and asked for recommendations. I asked people to get back to me by Friday."

"That sounds good."

"Do you know of any other good places to look?"

"Not really. Once you get past LinkedIn and Facebook, I'm not too familiar with methods of finding a job. I'm sure that John will have some ideas."

"I hope so. I feel like I have mined the people I know already, and now the well is dry."

I smiled and ate the last mouthful of pasta. Like all of Ella's food, the macaroni was excellent. I finished my salad and looked at Ranger. "I'm definitely getting better", I said. "I almost ate a whole helping of food, and I'm keeping it down."

Ranger smiled. "I think this has something to do with the fact that it is macaroni. You even like that boxed stuff, and in my view that's not macaroni."

I laughed. "I'll teach our children to like the boxed macaroni. Yes, it's not as good as homemade macaroni, but it is like a McDonald's burger compared with a homemade burger. They are completely different kettles of fish and should not be compared. Sometimes you crave a burger, whereas other times you crave a McDonald's burger. They are technically the same in that they are both composed of bread and meat but in are so different that they should be viewed as separate foods."

"Uh-hunh. Whatever you say. You probably like hot dogs as well, don't you?"

"Absolutely. Don't you?" I tried not to laugh at the revulsion on Ranger's face.

"I can see that I'm going to have to teach you some things about food", he said finally. "Hot dogs are like baloney. They are a bit of meat ground up finely with a lot of fat. Even sausages are better than hot dogs. Although they are still high in fat, they at least have recognizable bits of meat in them."

"Uh-hunh." I patted my stomach. "Don't worry, baby. I'll teach you to like all the regular foods that all the regular people like to eat."

Ranger shook his head in exasperation, but I could see that he was thinking about smiling. "Babe", he said.

I grinned and, as Ranger finished his meal, I put the remainder in the fridge and the dishes into the dishwasher. Ranger put on the kettle and wiped the table. By the time I finished my tasks, Ranger had finished his and the kettle almost boiling. He got out the teapot and warmed the pot with some hot water and, when the kettle had finished boiling, he made a pot of peppermint tea. We had gotten into the habit of drinking some after dinner each night, and it was a habit I could see us continuing after the baby was born.

Ranger picked up the blueprints and unrolled them onto the dining room table as I turned on the chandelier. We looked through all the floor plans. "I have purposely made the research department floor space quite large", said Ranger. "Research and Onsite Security are the two areas where I predict the greatest growth in the next five years, and Onsite Security doesn't need much office space. There is only Sebastian who works in the office as he manages all the different security guards. At some point he may need assistance, but at this point he is the overseer and I can't see that changing any time soon, no matter how many guards we hire. So he has a large office that will be able to be subdivided if we so desire, but at this point it will be his office only. With the research area, you will have a large office, but there will be separate offices for Miguel, Dirk and the person who is yet to be hired. Each of your offices will be large so that they can be subdivided in the future and there will be a large open area that we'll be able to put cubicles into if needed."

"How large a staff do you see the research department growing to?"

"I can't answer that. I do know that we desperately have to add people. I'm starting to get complaints from Operations and Sales that their requests aren't being answered in a timely fashion."

"We're doing the best that we can."

"I know that, babe. I can see how hard you work. The problem is that there is too much work for just you and Miguel to do – which is why we've hired Dirk and will hire another part-time employee. I talked to Tank, and Miguel isn't going to be taken off research until you are caught up on requests. I imagine that it will take you another couple of weeks at least."

"At least is right, especially if Newark comes back to us by the end of the week with four research requests."

"I hear you, babe. There are the same problems all across the company. Our hiring practices aren't keeping up with our incoming work. One of the problems and good things – at the same time – is that we are getting known in more than just New Jersey and Florida. We have had requests from places up into New York State, Vermont and Maine, and down the entire eastern seaboard to even Georgia and the Carolinas. We are currently designing a firewall to be used by the Pentagon that Leo and his team are working on, we are hiring security guards for a multi-location company in New York State, and Dave has developed relationships with those in Hollywood and is now known as the premier place on the east coast to go for bodyguards with many of the celebrities. We constantly have at least five bodyguards on assignment at any one time and, when the red carpet galas occur, I am taking men off patrol to fill the role simply because I don't have enough people."

"Are you planning on expanding your monitoring stations?"

"Yes. We just expanded to four stations a few months ago, but I'd like to put in room for ten. I will only put the hardware in for another two monitoring stations in with the office revamp though. I'd like to make one, however, a dedicated monitoring station for missions. We are getting more mission-specific monitoring that is happening, and it is always a little hairy for the person monitoring the feed at the same time as they are monitoring what is happening in the mission. If we had a dedicated station, we'd be able to slide the unit commander into the seat to monitor what is happening and guide the mission."

"I've noticed that you've put a lot more structure in the organizational chart, and have put in more levels of staff."

"The staff was getting too unwieldy for Tank and Nate and I to manage ourselves. There haven't been many changes to Nate's staff, but Operations has changed quite a bit. By changing the organization and adding more supervisors, I think the quality of our product will be better while Tank and I are spending less time on the various service details. Right now, things are falling through the cracks simply because Tank and I are too busy to pay attention to everything."

"How was Hal with his promotion to head of the four ERTs?"

"He was ecstatic. I have earmarked the Team Leads for the two additional ERTs, and have identified some people who I want on the teams. However, I won't put those teams into place until we have the dedicated space for them to live in. I like having the ERTs live onsite simply because of the quick response time."

"That has certainly worked well in the past."

"So what do you think of the research space?"

"I think there is a lot of extra space there, and there is room for a lot of growth."

"In actuality, on that floor will just be Research, Cybersecurity, Onsite Security, Personal Security and our new Investigative Services department. The rest of Operations will remain on the fifth floor."

I looked over the other floor plans and nodded. "I think there is a lot of room to grow in our rework, but I also think that the space is used well. I like the fact that each floor has a small conference room, and that there are three larger conference rooms on the main floor. I can't speak for the other departments, but I know that there are times when it makes sense for Research to have all the people working in the same room."

"Periodically, that sort of collaboration is essential. I'm going to encourage staff to use the boardrooms on the floors before they use the 'public' conference rooms on the first floor."

I looked at the sixth floor. "I think the new staff lounge will be awesome. It looks like a great space that people will like to hang out in."

"That's what I'm hoping. I want it to be a space that people can go to relax and be with people of like mind and experience. One of the problems that returning vets have is isolation. They don't want to talk about or aren't allowed to talk about the missions that they were on when they were overseas, and civilians don't instinctively understand the trials the soldier has faced. Civilians all want to know details and, when you don't give any, they tend to float away. I want staff to be supported at work in a way that they aren't in the rest of their lives. That support is essential to ease their way back into civilian life."

I looked at him. "I've said it before and I'll say it again. You are a good man, Ranger, and are someone that I am proud to be marrying."


	27. Chapter 27

Ranger's phone rang. Ranger picked it up and said, "talk". He listened for a few moments, then said, "it will take me an hour or so to get there. Will Cal be in the hospital when we arrive?" I looked up at him in tense alertness. There was a silence followed by, "I don't care if he doesn't want to go. If the paramedics say he should go to the hospital, he should go and that is an order." He listened for a few minutes more. "Let me talk to him, please."

I rolled up the blueprints and put them back on the breakfast bar and went to use the facilities. I knew that Ranger wouldn't want me to be there when he went to see Cal, but Cal was my friend as well and I wanted to make sure that he was alright. And just like I knew that Ranger wouldn't want me to go, I also knew that he would just as likely leave while I was using the little girl's room if he wanted me to stay. I knew that, if I wanted to go, I had to be ready to leave the minute Ranger was ready.

I quickly washed my hands, threw on some clothes and walked out to the dining room. Ranger hung up the phone. "That was Cal. He had been investigating the tampering of the meat destined for the different owners of the company when he was jumped and attacked. He came out the better in the fight. He just has a concussion, whereas the other person has a broken arm, a broken nose, a broken jaw and a broken clavicle. Cal is ticked that the person was able to get the jump on him in the first place."

"Talk to me in the car. I assume that Cal is on his way to the hospital?"

"You're not going with me."

"Yes, I am. Cal is my friend as well."

"Babe."

"Ranger."

He sighed.

I sighed.

He shook his head in resignation, and that's when I knew that he was going to let me go. I smiled. "I don't have time to convince you to stay home", he said. "It will likely be very boring and very cold."

"Nice try. I'm going."

He shook his head again and strode to the door of the apartment. "Let's go then. I'd like to get there as soon as we can. Otherwise, I think Cal will convince Dawn to let him go home, and he shouldn't be driving."

"There's another good reason for me to go", I said cheerfully. "I'll be able to drive Cal's car for him."

Ranger made a 'harrumph' sound. "This is against my best judgment", he said.

"Duly noted", I said. I slipped on my winter coat and pushed my feet into my boots. I picked up my purse and waited while Ranger put on his coat and boots, and then followed him out of the apartment and down the stairs to the car.

Ranger was silent in the car. He was entering his Zen state, where his pulse rate slowed to that of a hibernating groundhog. He was alert but peaceful, and I didn't want to say anything to break the peace. I had learned in the past that this state was how Ranger got himself in the mental space to deal with whatever calamity would be thrown his way.

The warmth of the heater in the car mixed with the soothing classical music on the stereo worked its usual magic, and I fell deep asleep five minutes after we left the Rangeman building. I barely woke up when Ranger arrived at the slaughterhouse. I think I said something like it was too early in the morning to get up, and I shut my eyes again and went back to sleep. Ranger shut the door softly after himself. I huddled into my coat. The cold was quickly seeping into the car, and I wanted the warmth that had been in the car on the way down. But the night was frigid and the car was getting colder. I thought that maybe I should have worn a hat after all. The cold woke me up further, and I opened my eyes to see the area lit up with police lights flashing. I sat up and looked for Ranger. I couldn't find him. I was getting chilly, however, and thought that it might be better if I got out of the car and moved around to create some heat as I tried to find Ranger.

I left the car and shut the door softly behind me, then wondered why I was shutting the door so quietly. The place was a madhouse. Police were everywhere. I walked around the circumference of the throng, looking for Ranger, attempting not to get in the way. There seemed to be a lot of people congregated around one truck in particular and I headed in that direction. I could see Ranger and I wanted to tell him where I was, but I knew that he wouldn't hear me from where he was and I didn't want yell and disturb everybody when they were so busy doing their jobs. I wanted a strong case to be built against the man who had hurt Cal.

As I walked around the circle, a man came behind me and grabbed me by the elbow. "You're not the police", he said.

"That's right", I said. "I'm not. How may I help you?"

"I was on that truck that the police are all congregated around, and I dropped something in there. I need you to go and get it."

"Why?"

"I don't want it to be known that I was on that truck."

"Why?" I looked back at him and recognized Robert from the pictures that I had pulled up when I was researching him. I tried not to let my recognition show, and I must have been getting better at the innocent look because he didn't appear to suspect me of anything. I wondered if my innocent look would be enough to fool my mother, and then shook my head. My mother would never be fooled by the innocent look. She knew me too well. "Why could it possibly be bad that you were on that truck?"

"Something bad happened, and if people think that I was on that truck they might think that I was at fault."

"What happened?" I practiced my innocent look again, and once again Robert seemed to swallow it.

"Meat from this facility was being tampered with."

"Serves the owners right", I said. I hoped that commiseration would ease my way and win Robert over to my side, to help him decide to trust me and tell me details. "What happened with the meat?"

"The meat was being contaminated while it was in the truck. Boxes that were going to the owners' locations were being sprinkled with droplets of water that manure had been steeped in. It was making the food bad, which meant that the people who ate the food were poisoned. So we are getting back at the owners for being complete assholes, and we're ruining the reputation of the slaughterhouse, all at the same time."

"What will the clients do? After all, you are affecting the clients' businesses, affecting their reputation."

"We are very careful to only tamper with those boxes going to the owners' locations."

"How many owners are there?"

"Six. One of the owners owns a restaurant, and they order a lot of meat from us each day. We've been having a field day tampering with their meat."

"I see. Who are 'we'?"

"There are three of us. I am the person who identifies what shipments are going where and what truck the owners' shipments are on. Barry is the person who is doing the actual food tampering, and my sister is the person who is creating the toxin that we are sprinkling on the meat."

"It sounds like it is a family affair. How do you know Barry?"

A dark look flew across his face. "Barry was my boyfriend but as soon as I got him the job at the slaughterhouse here, he dumped me. He often talked about how he'd like to bring Nature-Fresh down. When we broke up, my sister and I decided to help him achieve his dream."

"Are you hoping that he'll look favorably on you again?"

"Yes."

"I see. Why aren't you doing the food tampering if you're the one responsible for creating the toxin and for knowing the location of the food that is available for tampering? Are you just trying to pass the buck?"

"I'm not trying to pass the buck. It's just that Barry is so much better at tampering with the meat. I personally can't deal with the meat. I'm vegetarian, for Christ's sake. Knowing that it is meat, that it was formerly a living animal, freaks me out."

"Yet you choose to work in a slaughterhouse?"

"I know. It's an odd career choice."

"You can say that again. So what are you planning to do with me?"

"You're going into the truck when no one is looking and bring the hat back to me. It has fallen at the back of the truck."

"And I'm going to do this why?"

"Because I have a gun and I have nothing to lose."

"Let's see your gun", I said. I turned so that I could more fully see him, and he pulled his gun out of his pocket and waved it around. I swallowed down my fear. "If you have a gun, why don't you go into the truck yourself to pick up your hat?"

"I'm shy. I don't like groups of people."

"I understand", I said. "However, it's not my hat and I don't think that I should have to retrieve it. This is your problem."

"Why are you here, anyway?" he asked.

"My boyfriend is an insurance appraiser, and he was called out. But we were on a date, so I ended up coming along as well." I practiced my innocent look again, and I thought that I must be getting better at it. Robert was eating it up.

"Well, you're going to be my ticket out of here", he said. "Did you drive?"

"My boyfriend did, but he has the keys."

"Don't you have a set?"

"Does your boyfriend have a set of your keys?"

"Touché."

"Damn skippy."

"My car is stuck at the back of the lot, and there is no way to get it out again."

"So let me get this straight. You want me to commit suicide by walking through a group of police officers into a crime scene to remove evidence and, when I do, there is no way of getting out of here?"

"It's suicidal, isn't it?"

"It certainly doesn't make sense. I will get caught going into the truck and, when I do, it is more likely that your hat will be found and tagged than it would be if nothing is done."

"They're going to fry me."

"I don't think they fry people for food tampering. Why were you on the truck if you weren't the one tampering with the food?"

"My job was to hold the flashlight so that Barry could do his job."

"What happened to Barry?"

"One of the other workers came looking at the boxes of meat. Barry jumped him and attacked him, but he didn't do well in the fight. The other guy fought like some commando or something, because it wasn't long before Barry was beaten and unconscious."

"So let me get this straight. You were holding the flashlight and the other man came upon you and Barry?"

"No. We heard a sound and Barry went to investigate. He told me to stay in the truck, so I didn't see what was going on. I just knew that he had been hurt. When the fighting stopped, I snuck out of the truck and hid in the yard so that I could see that Barry was okay. I phoned it into the police when I saw that neither of the men was moving. I knew that Barry was hurt bad. He is a very tough person, you know? But his arm was at an unnatural angle and he was unconscious. The other man was unconscious as well, but he was starting to stir and so I left and hid between the different trucks. I saw the assailant make a call and a few minutes later the police showed up."

"So you've been hanging out here wondering how you could get your car out?"

"And watching. It wasn't until after the assailant woke up that I realized that my hat was left in the truck. I've been trying to figure out how to get it back. And then you came along."

"I can't do anything to help you."

"They are going to think that I did it. I didn't tamper with the food though, and I shouldn't be punished as though I did."

"I understand, but I can't help you. You're asking me to walk into an area that is under investigation. People are watching the area and I have no jurisdiction to walk into it."

Robert looked at me with panic on his face. "I need to get that hat back."


	28. Chapter 28

"The best that you can do is to leave the hat there and hope that it isn't found." I looked at him and tried to figure out if it was panic-button time. A few months ago, Ranger had given me a watch with a tracker in it, as well as a panic button. The panic button had a direct line into the control room and, whenever I activated it, the control room was alerted that I was in trouble. The first thing they did was let Ranger know that I was in trouble. The second thing they did was let Tank know that I was in trouble. It was something I didn't want to do unless I was in absolute distress. Unfortunately, I was in absolute distress a lot. I'd had the need to use the panic button a handful of times in the six months since he had given it to me and I was always glad to have the ability to get help when I needed it.

But I didn't think that it was panic button time yet. Ranger might disagree, but I thought I had the situation well under control. I could see him look up, an internal beacon telling him that I was there, and he looked around the area for me. His face lightened when he located me, and I smiled at him in return. But I might have looked a little stressed, because his eyes turned assessing and he looked at the area around me. He zeroed in on Robert, and I decided that Ranger's innocent face was just as good as mine because, to the untrained eye, he appeared totally unconcerned about what was happening beside me. However, I was trained, and I could see the tenseness in his shoulders and the tightness in his face that said that he was focused on the mission of saving me, and he wouldn't stop until I was safe. He said something to Dawn, and she looked up and over to me as Ranger left her and walked towards me.

Robert saw Ranger coming and he panicked. He pulled out his gun again and buried it in my kidneys. Ranger must have seen the flash of the gun in the strobe lights of the police cars, because his normal walk became a speed walk. To normal people, Ranger's speed walk was a run, but I had seen him run before, and this was definitely not a run.

Robert watched Ranger coming and dug his gun in harder into my kidneys. I winced, and Ranger's eyes grew tight in his 'not happy' look. He broke out into a run, but by the time he got to me Robert had become unglued. He was motioning me forward with his gun, and leading me into the fray. "Robert", I said, "what are you trying to accomplish right now?"

"I just want my fucking hat back", he said.

Ranger reached us. "Hi", he said as he held out his hand. "I'm Ranger Manoso. I don't think we've met."

Robert switched his gun to his other hand so that he could shake Ranger's hand, and Ranger looked at me for a second. I knew what he was telling me, and I moved to the side when Robert's attention was on Ranger. Ranger grabbed his hand in a shake, spun him around, and disarmed him before Robert had even had registered that Ranger was a threat. He cranked his arm up behind Robert's back and marched him over to Dawn.

"I could have done that", I said.

Ranger thought about smiling. "Babe", he said.

"I don't understand", said Dawn. "What happened?"

"This is Robert Buckley", I said. "He is the bookkeeper for Nature-Fresh and he is the former lover of Barry Zeiberman. Barry was the person who as in the fight with Cal this evening. Apparently he surprised Cal and Cal reacted like a commando and put him down, isn't that what you said, Robert?"

Robert looked furious. "Who are you?" he asked.

"I'm the researcher that was working on behalf of the Newark Police Division in the investigation."

"FUCK! I thought you said that you weren't the police."

"I'm not the police. I'm part of a private company that works as consultants for the police." I turned back to Dawn. "Robert was holding the flashlight for Barry so that Barry could sprinkle some manure-steeped water over the meat that is going to the various owners. Robert's sister, Karen Buckley, is the person who made the toxic stew that they were treating the meat with."

Dawn whipped out her cuffs and handed them to Ranger. Ranger restrained Robert's hands behind his back. "Can I get a witness statement from you regarding what Robert said to you?" she said.

"Absolutely."

"You lied to me", said Robert.

I smiled. "I actually didn't really lie. I told you that I wasn't the police, which I'm not. I did, however, lie when I told you my boyfriend was an insurance appraiser. He is, in fact, instead a small business owner."

Ranger looked at me, and I could see the amusement on his face. "I'm an insurance appraiser?"

Dawn smiled. "You fell for that?" she said to Robert.

"What? I didn't think she would lie to me", he said.

I smiled. "It must be my innocent face." Ranger snorted. He, like my mother, would never be fooled by my innocent face.

"So Barry and Robert were in the back of the truck tampering with the food", I said to Dawn. "Robert was holding the flashlight and Barry was doing the actual tampering because Robert is grossed out by meat and doesn't want to touch it."

"I see."

"I'm a vegetarian", said Robert. "Raw meat is disgusting. For that matter, so is cooked meat. I don't know how people can't understand that it was at one time a living animal."

"And you work at a slaughterhouse?" said Ranger.

"It was hiring, and they weren't particular about background. It didn't matter to them that I had barely passed my accounting designation. In fact, they seemed to like it that I had trouble reading the balance sheet."

"That's because they were committing fraud", said Dawn. She sighed. "Go on with your story."

"Anyway", I said, "Robert was holding the flashlight when they heard a sound. Barry told Robert to stay put and surprised the person who was looking around – Cal. Cal and Barry fought, but it didn't take Cal long to subdue Barry. Robert waited until the fight was over and, when it was, he crept out of the truck and over to the two men. Barry looked severely hurt while Cal just looked like he was knocked out. How they both became unconscious at the same time I do not know, but they did. Robert called the tip in to the police and hid behind some of the other trucks to watch over Barry and make sure that he was alright. Cal looked around and investigated the truck when he came to. He knew which truck Barry and Robert had been in and he looked inside to see where the meat was scheduled to be delivered."

"The manifest says that the truck is going to Manoso's as well as four other restaurants and five grocery stores", said Dawn.

"We were only contaminating Manoso's food though", said Robert.

"The problem is that Robert dropped his hat when they were startled, and he forgot to pick it up when he left the truck again. The hat is still on the truck. That's where I come in."

"How did you get held at gunpoint, babe?"

"I woke up in the car cold, and I decided to go and find you thinking that it would be better for me to be moving around. As I walked around the outskirts of the confusion looking for you, Robert found me and told me that I had to go wading into the truck to retrieve his hat."

"A friend gave me that hat", he said.

"I have a hat like that", said Ranger. "I don't wear it often because I don't want to take the chance that it gets wrecked. I value that hat and what it represents."

"What does your hat represent?" asked Dawn.

"It's a SEAL hat, and the person who gave it to me died as a result of a mission that we had been on together."

"You wear a hat made of seal skin?" said Robert. His eyes turned glassy and he shuddered. "That's gross."

Ranger smiled.

"Anyway", I said, "Robert and I talked for a while, and when I went to leave he decided to force me to retrieve his hat. I tried to tell him that it would be better for him to forget about the hat and go far, far away from here. But he said the police had blocked in his car anyway, so he wasn't going anywhere, and the best bet was for him to retrieve his hat. He seemed to think that he'd get the death penalty for assisting in the food tampering."

"I didn't do it. I just held the flashlight", he said.

"Identifying the trucks carrying the owners' shipments, identifying the time and place of shipments, working with your sister to develop the toxin that was used to contaminate the food? None of that counts?" I said.

Robert looked furious. "I just held the fucking flashlight."

"How long has this been going on?" asked Dawn.

"Barry started with the company three weeks ago", I said to Dawn. I turned to Robert. "Have you been poisoning the food since the moment Barry was hired on?"

He nodded his head. "We started slowly at first. The first week, we only did a few pieces of food and we waited to see what would happen. But no one approached the company to complain. No one came and shut the doors to the abattoir. So we started tampering more and more frequently, until it was obvious that the food was being purposely contaminated. But even then, the doors weren't shut down permanently.

"We were happy when the police started nosing around. However, pain and suffering didn't come to the owners of the company. Barry's family almost lost their abattoir, and it was through Nature-Fresh's unethical practices that the company was doing well and was doing much better than Abateur. It made Barry unhappy knowing that his company was suffering when they had done nothing wrong, whereas Nature-Fresh had lied about so many things yet was thriving."

"It doesn't seem fair", I said.

"That's true", said Robert.

"What I don't understand", I said, "is why you were targeting Manoso's? The Manoso family no longer owns part of Nature-Fresh." Robert blanched. "You were literally poisoning people for no reason at all."

"No, no!" said Robert. "They are part owners of the company."

"No, they aren't. At least, they aren't any longer. Perhaps, next time something like this happens, you should approach the company. If you had gone to the owners of Manoso's and told them of the unethical practices, they would have asked for an investigation long before it got to the point where you had to threaten the lives of others."

"We didn't threaten people."

"You poisoned them. If the victim was someone with a compromised immune system, you could have killed them. But then, you might be concerned about the lives of animals and you might refuse to eat meat to protect those animals, but when it comes to humans you don't care about people and the potential impact of your actions upon them. How can you be so concerned about animals but not concerned about humans?"

"That's not right. They are owners of Nature-Fresh."

"Even if they were, they are good people. They would have listened to you when you talked to them about the fraud and other practices that were going on."

"I don't think that they would have listened."

"You smeared your good name trying to make a point, and it was a needless action. I know that Manoso's owners would have listened to you."

"It was Nature-Fresh that was screwing up, not Abateur."

I turned red in anger. "That brings up another point", I said. "You say Abateur is a good company, an honorable company, yet they are willing to let you poison other people to try to generate business. Does that smack of someone who is honorable or fair?"

Robert turned red, but he didn't say anything. I was disappointed. I was simmering over in anger and was ready to shoot him between the eyes with both barrels.

"Let's get you to jail", said Dawn. She led Robert away while she read him his Miranda rights and, as she went, I could hear him say again, "I just held the fucking flashlight!"

Ranger looked at me as Robert left. "You were pretty emphatic there, babe", he said. "Do you feel better?"

I smiled. "Getting there."

Ranger pulled me into a hug from behind so that my back was to his front, and he positioned himself so that he was taking the brunt of the wind. With the extra warmth surrounding me, my shivering slowed down and my teeth stopped chattering. "Better?" he said.

I nodded and nestled deeper in his arms. We watched the investigation take place from the side of the melee, and a few short minutes later Dawn returned. "About that witness statement", she said.

"How about we sit in the car out of the wind to give you the statement?" said Ranger.

Dawn nodded. "It's particularly frigid tonight, isn't it?"

"It's the first true cold night of the season", said Ranger. He led us to the Cayenne and we slipped into our seats, and he turned the overhead light on so that Dawn could see her witness statement form. She started filling it out, and I told her my story again in chronological order. She wrote down every last word and, when she was finished, she asked me to read it over. I did, agreed with what she had detailed, and signed the bottom of the form.

She looked around the car. "Being a security specialist must pay better than being a cop", she said as she took in Ranger's leather seats and luxurious interior.

"There's a reason I'm not an officer", said Ranger with an easy smile.

"It must be nice to not be hampered with budget restrictions. Newark, like many jurisdictions, is always strapped for cash."

"We've had our lean years as well, but at this point we are riding a high and I'm not sure when it will stop."

"You had better be careful, or I will apply."

Ranger laughed. "I think I have heard that before from the TPD staff as well."

Dawn smiled. "I have two other cases on my desk that I could use your expertise on."

"Talk to your chief", said Ranger. "Until she designates someone as our liaison, all information requests will be going through her."

"I'll talk to her tomorrow. You realize, Stephanie, that I'll be putting you on the stand during this trial."

"I know. I'll make sure I have some maternity wear that is suitable to wear to court."

"You're pregnant? That's fabulous!"

"Thank you. We're pretty happy about it."

"Who is the lucky father?"

I smiled. "Ranger", I said.

"Damn", said Dawn.

"Why's that?" asked Ranger.

"I was hoping you weren't taken", she said.

Ranger smiled, and I could hear Dawn's sigh from the front seat. She quickly cleared her throat and said, "I'll let you know how the investigation is going on this end. At this point, I have talked to my captain and he said that he has to charge your parents just because he is charging all owners of the company. However, he anticipates that the judge will say that they have already done their community time and their cooperation and participation in the case will be seen favorably. My captain doesn't even think that your parents will receive a slap on their wrist. Rather, he thinks the judge will thank them for bringing the issue to light."

"My family will be grateful", said Ranger.

"The chief has reminded me to tell you to submit your bill to her and she'll pay half."

"That is very generous of her", said Ranger, "and we greatly appreciate it."

"How will this work? Janet said that we were hoping to hire you on."

Ranger explained about the liaison and how it would all work. "I'd like to be your liaison", said Dawn.

"That's up to you and Janet to work out", said Ranger. "I don't know the people in the Newark police division, so I can't recommend anyone."

Dawn nodded her head. "I should let you go. I'm sure you want to see your staff at the hospital."

"I do", said Ranger. "It was, after all, why we came."

Shortly afterwards, we had picked up Cal from the hospital and were driving him back to the slaughterhouse to pick up his car. Cal was embarrassed to have been concussed by Barry, and Ranger told him that he had done a good job only getting concussed. "After all, you put Barry down. Barry's shot where you got your concussion was just a lucky break that Barry had. You wrecked him and put him down so that he couldn't get up again, and in self-defense that is exactly what I would want to see."

"Will I get in trouble for putting him down?"

"I don't think so. The Newark police, from what I could see, were just thankful to have the case closed." Ranger told Cal about Robert's arrest and Robert's confession.

"I thought the three of them together were involved. I had seen Karen around the slaughterhouse a few times, and she seemed to be very cozy with Barry and Robert. Robert made sense, since he was her brother. However, it did not make sense that she was cozy with Barry since he was Robert's former lover. I just thought that there was something happening there that I couldn't put my finger on. I was still getting my ducks in order. I knew that something was going down tonight, and I tried to get to the trucking yard prior to the sabotaging taking place. I could hear them in the truck and had called through the tampering to Dawn and was standing back to observe what was happening when I was attacked. The rest you know."

"You did a good job, Cal", said Ranger. He turned into the slaughterhouse parking lot. "Rangeman is thinking about opening up an Investigative department that would do the sort of work that you did this week. Would that be something you'd be interested in heading?"

"Are you serious? Hell, yeah, I'd be interested. It would be a dream come true."

"We hear that a lot", I said. I smiled. Ranger – dream maker. It had a nice ring to it.

Much better than the Grand Poobah.

_~ The End ~_

_Thank you for reading Tamper 32. I hope you liked it. The next story in the series is Theft 33, which I will start posting today. ~ Sarah ~_


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